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1
Introduction to E-learning
Research
R i c h a rd A n d re w s a n d C a ro l i n e
Haythornthwaite
The publication of the SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research marks a signifi-

cant point in studies in e-learning. Although there has been considerable
development in teaching and learning, as well as in learning design, there is as
yet no coherent view of what constitutes research in the field nor of how best to
undertake it. The present volume takes stock of progress in e-learning research,
addressing a range of issues from student experience to policy and provides a
foundation for further research and development.
By e-learning research, we mean primarily research into, on, or about the use
of electronic technologies for teaching and learning. This encompasses learning
for degrees, work requirements and personal fulfilment, institutional and non-
institutionally accredited programmes, in formal and informal settings. It
includes anywhere, anytime learning, as well as campus-based extensions to
face-to-face classes. E-learning includes all levels of education from pre-school
to secondary/high school, higher education and beyond. The potential for this
area is broad. For this handbook, the focus is primarily on e-learning in the
formal setting of degree-granting institutes of higher education. However, with
many kinds of e-learning and computer-assisted teaching entering all arenas of
education, from schools to workplaces, examples from other arenas of education
enter into and carry important information for the discussion.
As a working definition of e-learning, the following from the Higher
Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) can serve as a starting point:
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 2
2 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH
The use of technologies in learning opportunities, encompassing flexible learning as well as

distance learning; and the use of information and communication technology as a commu-
nications and delivery tool, between individuals and groups, to support students and
improve the management of learning.
(HEFCE, 2005: 12)
However, this definition is not an end point, and at points in the Introduction and
throughout the Handbook we will take issue with some aspects of this initial
definition. In particular we take issue with the way the HEFCE definition
appears to portray technology as simply a delivery mechanism, and fails to
address the co-evolutionary nature of technology and its use. The Handbook
chapters together help provide a more nuanced and elaborated definition and
appreciation of e-learning.
Since the mid-1980s or so we have seen the rapid evolution of Computer-
Assisted Learning (CAL) and Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) into Course
Management Systems (CMS) and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). From
early forays into the use of computers to assist, or indeed provide the entire basis
for learning with particular topics to more recent activities involving VLEs and
other custom-designed interfaces, the computer has held a fascination for teach-
ers, lecturers, learning designers and learners alike. At times claims have been
hyped: it has been variously claimed that computers would revolutionize learning,
bring about the end of the book, put an end to institutionalized learning and/or
improve the quality of learning. Rarely have these claims been properly tested. At
other times its impact has been overly downplayed, as in the many studies that
find ‘no significant difference’ between face-to-face learning and online learning
outcomes. Rarely do these studies look at the more transformative effects of e-
learning, such as creating a distributed community, and learning new genres of
communication and collaborative work practice. We now appear to be at a stage of
development where we can gauge the impact of the computer on learning in a
more measured, critical way, as well as taking a more comprehensive view of
changes accompanying e-learning. It is in the spirit of such critique, realism, and
expanded view that the present volume has been conceived.
This introduction begins the discussion of e-learning research which is con-
tinued in subsequent chapters. The introduction addresses definitional issues,
taking time to explore the ‘e’ and ‘learning’ in e-learning, then theoretical and
methodological issues, before presenting a model of co-evolutionary processes
of technology and learning.
In choosing to use the term ‘e-learning’ we have turned away from other
names that might equally have been useful, such as computer-assisted learning,
technology-enhanced learning, instructional technologies or online learning. To
us, these terms fall into the trap that many previous studies of the relationship
between technology and learning/education have fallen into, of assuming that
learning exists independently of technologies and that in various ways technolo-
gies enhance it. The causal assumptions behind terms such as ‘technology-
enhanced learning’ are ones we critique in this introduction.
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INTRODUCTION TO E-LEARNING 3
‘E-learning’ as a term is a hybrid. Like many compounds, the two elements

have worked together to create a new hybrid. Nevertheless, it is made up of two
parts: e + learning. The ‘e’ of e-learning has a longer history than many will
assume, including long-term efforts to capture voice and images, and to store
and then transmit those recordings. With each capture – from records to CDs,
film to DVD, conversation to text chat – there are trade-offs in quality, interac-
tivity, and transferability: trade-offs that mark both the pros and cons of
technology mediation. The following section takes us through some of this jour-
ney, giving historical and theoretical perspectives on electronic media.
But first we give an example based on the use of one technology – electronic
whiteboards, implemented primarily in secondary/high school settings – that
shows the kind of work that needs to be done to bring experience with technolo-
gies together into a research framework.
AN EXAMPLE OF RESEARCH ISSUES: ELECTRONIC WHITEBOARDS
Symptomatic of the problems facing researchers in e-learning is the case of

electronic interactive whiteboards – touch-sensitive screens that work in con-
junction with a computer and projector – and their efficacy in learning. The
issue is that there is little substantial research on the topic (though see Smith et
al., 2005), and yet many schools have installed them in place of blackboards or
other forms of large-scale projection in a classroom. Reports are anecdotal,
based on perceptions of pro-technology innovators and even of the technology
vendors, with reviews of their use describing and justifying, post hoc, the use of
whiteboards in the classroom. Whiteboards are examined in isolation, without
considering their place in the social and technological context of the classroom,
or of the evolution of technology and practice over time.
Most of the studies of whiteboards have been small-scale and descriptive, the
most in-depth and evaluative being those by Glover and Miller (2001) and
Goodison (2002; see also Gerard and Widener, 1999; Levy, 2002). Glover and
Miller (2001) report on the views of both students and staff on the impact of
interactive whiteboards in a secondary/high school. They discuss and describe
the use, teaching and learning implications, problems and potential of white-
boards. They find that the attitudes of teachers towards the use of interactive
whiteboards are particularly critical: where teachers adapt their pedagogy, the
use of whiteboards has more impact; where they are used as a surrogate black-
board, the impact is less significant. Whiteboards are described as increasing
efficiency, enabling teachers to draw on a range of ICT resources fluently and
with pace; as extending learning and creating new learning styles stimulated by
interaction with the whiteboard (BECTA, 2003b). Because of the role of the
teacher, Glover and Miller conclude that training in the use of whiteboards is
key to the transformation of classrooms and of the learning experience for
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 4
young people. Goodison (2002) used interviews to collect data on the views of
primary/elementary school children on the use of interactive whiteboards.
Goodison found that whiteboards played a significant role in facilitating class-
room instruction, social learning and student engagement with technology.
However, it was not clear from this work what effect or impact the electronic
whiteboard had on learning. As with many such articles, the results are pre-
sented as a positive finding about whiteboards.
In the UK, the British Educational Communication and Technology Agency
(BECTA, 2003a) has been appropriately cautious about the research on elec-
tronic whiteboards. It acknowledges that they were a relatively recent
technology with little research literature relating to them in refereed academic
journals. BECTA (2003b) concludes that much of the evidence about the impact
of whiteboards on learning is anecdotal, conducted by schools or school boards
and local authorities, and carried out on a small scale. That the research is
largely qualitative is not a problem, in that such a study could provide key
insights into the way an electronic whiteboard is used. But as most of the studies
are of the perceptions of use (elicited via questionnaires and interviews, anec-
dotes and personal testimony), and as most of those reporting their perceptions
are excited – like pioneers – by the new technology, it is probably too early to
say that there is much reliable or substantial research evidence to hand. In a
more recent review (BECTA, 2006) the indication is that the installation and use
of interactive whiteboards in the UK have spread rapidly, with
93 per cent of primary schools and 97–8 per cent of secondary schools reporting
that they had installed such technology (some under political pressure from
bodies like the Office for Standards in Education). This review also notes that
there has been a pilot evaluation of the use of interactive/electronic whiteboards
in mathematics and literacy lessons in primary schools (Higgins et al., 2005),
with a more large-scale evaluation of the Department of Education and Skills
Schools Whiteboard Expansion program due in 2006/07. The most recent pres-
entation on the latter evaluation at time of writing was by Somekh and Haldane
(2006), who report on behalf of a larger project team that they used multi-level
modelling of attainment of individual children, based on gains in national test
scores, questionnaire surveys, observations of interactive whiteboard training,
and digital video classroom observation from ten case study primary schools.
They suggest that the interactive whiteboard can act as a mediating tool between
teacher and pupils; that its size can excite and motivate children; that it has
potential for special needs use; that it can speed up learning as well as provide
an archived record of use. Questions are also raised about the nature of interac-
tivity. It could be that this particular Department for Education Skills (DfES)
evaluation, when completed, will provide a foundation or benchmark for further
study and research on the topic; or, as BECTA (2006) puts it, a ‘robust assess-
ment of the impact of interactive display technologies which we currently lack’
(p. 11).
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 5
Other information on whiteboard use comes from the vendors themselves. In

a ‘review of classroom case studies and research literature’ from the US, the UK
and Australia, SMART Technologies (2004) – the self-described ‘industry leader
in interactive whiteboard technology’ (online) – conclude that interactive white-
boards affect learning in several ways:
They serve to raise the level of student engagement in a classroom, motivate students and
promote enthusiasm for learning. In at least one case, the addition of an interactive white-
board positively influenced student attendance. Interactive whiteboards support many
different learning styles and have been successfully employed in hearing and visually
impaired learning environments. Research also indicates higher levels of student retention,
and notes taken on an interactive whiteboard can play a key role in the student review
process. In addition to student learning, observations also indicate that designing lessons
around interactive whiteboards can help educators streamline their preparation and be more
efficient in their ICT integration.
(2004: 3)
The problem with such a review is, of course, that it is not independent. And,
again, it is the positive results that are highlighted. Thus, it is unclear what edu-
cators may take from such a review in order to make informed decisions about
the adoption of such tools. But it is also clear that the technology itself, as well
as its use, develops over time. Somekh and Haldane (2006) suggest that teachers
were largely confident in the use of the tool because of their daily use of it,
which cannot be said of practice even five years earlier in a range of ICTs.
This example shows the potential and the need for various kinds of examina-
tions of e-learning and its technologies. There is room for systematic and
independent research reviews on e-learning topics, ones that balance a pro-
innovation view with the realities of large-scale implementation. Chapters in this
Handbook serve as reviews for a number of topics relating to e-learning. There
is also substantial room for small and large-scale primary research studies using
techniques such as direct observation, control and experimental groups, and lon-
gitudinal dimensions. As in the example above, the focus is too often on the new
computing technology as a single entity, introduced and used in one way at one
time. This ignores implementation and adoption effects, the use of other com-
plementary technologies, and the reciprocal, co-evolutionary nature of the
relationship between technologies and learning. These are the kinds of issues
addressed when research steps in to make sense of e-learning as a system- and
societal-wide change in teaching and learning.
We turn now to beginning the task of addressing e-learning and e-learning
research. We start by providing context for the current wave of e-learning tech-
nologies, reviewing important trends in recording and dissemination of
materials that form the historical background for the ‘e’ in e-learning, before
joining it up again with ‘learning’.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 6
THE ‘E’ IN E-LEARNING
What is the ‘e’ in e-learning, and what does it mean for learning? The ‘e’ in e-
learning joins many common hybrids such as e-mail and e-commerce in
signifying enactment through electronic means, typically interpreted as computer-
based. Essential components of all ‘e’ enterprises are the computer hardware and
software, but also the networking infrastructures that make it possible to collect
and distribute data, information and knowledge to people at different times and
locations. Devices that permit access to these data streams now no longer need to
be the fixed desktop computer. The mobility and multimedia capabilities afforded
by laptops, palmtops (also known as Personal Digital Assistants, PDAs), mobile
phones, and media players (e.g. MP3 players), shatter our notions of where and by
what means ‘e’ activities can take place. Thus, in considering e-learning, we
include a range of electronically networked Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) via which learning can take place.
While we often find e-learning reified as a particular course management
system, its flexibility lies in the way new technologies are quickly appropriated
into the e-learning toolkit. This is possible because of continuing efforts to cross
hardware platforms. At its basis, e-learning technology, like all other e-
enterprises, depends on hardware to process digital or analogue signals; soft-
ware that can encode and decode, collect, store and forward, and present
communications in visual, textual and/or audio modes; applications and systems
that bring together tools to support data storage and retrieval, course manage-
ment, computer-mediated communication, and collaborative virtual
environments. As we will discuss below, equally important in this technological
mix are the people who use the systems – teachers, instructors, administrators,
students – each bringing to the e-learning enterprise their ideas of how teaching,
learning, and communication should be enacted.
Educators have long been appropriating technologies into the classroom,
from radio and television, records and record players, video reels and projectors,
to today’s computers, CDs, DVDs, podcasts, and more. What the digital revolu-
tion has done is free the information and its carriers from the classroom, making
the information available in ever increasingly mobile ways. What is often forgot-
ten is how each of these technologies performs a slightly different way of coding
and decoding data and information, at times enhancing one mode of communi-
cation over another, but each changing where and when we receive information
and communication. The following presents a brief historical background to
emphasize that computing technologies represent the current culmination of
many years of electronic encoding protocols and devices, each with its own
limits and affordances. Later, we pick up again the notion of affordances to dis-
cuss contemporary computing technologies.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 7
Coding and decoding signals

The historical shift from analogue to digital technology has revolutionalized the
resources for learning by making material available that is high-fidelity, and
which can be repurposed, easily reproduced (within copyright constraints), and
reviewed in a number of different modes via a number of different types of hard-
ware. E-learning, as we define it in this volume, could hardly be imagined
without the digital shift. The vast majority of electronic information, in the
broad, technical sense of the word, is now transferred in digital form. In the UK
and US, for example, there are plans to switch the entire broadcasting of televi-
sion to digital format (by 2010 in the UK and 2009 in the US).
The translation of a message via digital coding generally makes for less inter-
ference and thus better quality of the communication. Indeed, since such
recordings can be made without even travelling through the vibrating air, e.g.
from a digital piano direct to the recording device, they represent more ‘purely’
the origin of the sound. However, such ‘purity’ can come across as clinical,
without the attendant sounds that accompany live music, such as the performer’s
breathing or the audience reaction. The analogy for e-learning is that an instruc-
tor’s words, flawlessly typed into text for distribution to students, can fail to
convey the enthusiasm they express verbally, the pacing they use to present the
text, and the gaze they use while speaking. However, an advantage of digital
coding is that the original message can be reproduced on an infinite number of
occasions, without the deterioration that takes place in the course of translation
through repeated use of the kinds of materials that tend to be used with analogue
recording, like vinyl or tape. Similarly, the instructor’s words remain available,
distributable and reproducible long after the lecture presentation has taken place.
Thus, at the recording and transmission level, there are differences in the kind of
message and translation of communication that occurs, and that are likely to
have an impact on e-learning.
Digital recording is now not only easy to do, but easy to disseminate. Neither
tapes nor CDs need to be distributed to remote sites; nor is specialized equip-
ment (beyond the computer) needed to decode the recording. There are a few
caveats. First that non-specialized and widely available recording and playback
equipment provides a generic representation without the fidelity available in
dedicated, high-end technologies such as those for audio, photography, or film.
However, one might argue that this has always been the case, since high-fidelity
recordings have for a long time been played back on simpler, less expensive,
stereo equipment. In the Computer Age, this issue may be more important
because of more widespread, low-fidelity, data recording devices that combine
with wide dissemination, e.g. cameras in cell phones, audio recording in lap-
tops, and movie capability in digital cameras. Media production is changing
from high fidelity/low number to low fidelity/high number. Dissemination is
changing from specialized and controlled to widespread and grass-roots.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 8
Second, newer translations from full-screen to smaller handheld or mobile

phone interface truncate and reinterpret text and visual representations (both in
sending messages, e.g. by Short Messaging Service (SMS), and in receiving them,
e.g. in receiving Web pages on very small screens). Whereas dedicated technolo-
gies formerly ensured that decoding was approximately the same for all receivers
(within the range, say, of the size of a television screen, or quality of record-play-
ing audio equipment), current message receivers may be using markedly different
decoding schemes. This is an issue not just for formerly analogue messages.
Information produced and published on the Web may appear differently depend-
ing on the colour palette of the computer screen, the Web browser in use, the size
of the window and the operating system of the computer. What you see on retriev-
ing from the Web is not necessarily what we see from the Web.
Third, the ubiquity of computer access and the expectation that ‘everyone,
everywhere’ can have equal access to digital signals must be questioned: we are
not yet at the stage where broadband capabilities are equally available. Service
arrives late to low-population areas; wireless may be taken for granted in some
cities and on some campuses, but this is by no means a universal service; and
cell/mobile phone signals can be limited by geography and terrain. As well as
technical obstacles, cost can be a significant barrier in the acquisition of com-
puters as well as of Internet services. The digital divide remains a real issue
within societies and particularly internationally (see Gorard and Taylor, 2005;
Haythornthwaite, this volume).
Modes of communication
Communication signals can carry sound, text, and images. These major forms of
communication are often called, metaphorically, ‘languages’. The aural and
visual modes translate directly into sounds and moving and still images; the tex-
tual mode is, interestingly, based on an aural code (speech) but given visual
form (text, letters). ‘Text’ is thus an abstracted, second-level symbolic system, a
highly powerful medium or mode of communication that is itself hybrid. It can
be conveyed visually and/or through sound and has, through history, manifested
itself in various languages, each using different symbolic representation systems
(e.g. Latin, Greek, Sumerian, Mandarin). The term ‘text’ can also be used to
refer to multimodal texts as well as to linguistic texts.
Text is of particular importance for e-learning because not only is education
heavily weighted toward the use and production of texts, but e-learning
increases the textual load with conversations and interactions occurring largely
through the texts of chat rooms, blogs, e-mail, bulletin boards, etc. Notions of
Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN), prevalent since the mid-1990s, stress
near-exclusive use of text-based postings. It is only recently that proponents of
ALN have begun to see this as a supplement or extender to face-to-face interac-
tion, in ideas of blended learning (see below). This despite the fact that
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 9
programmes which have long been including synchronous and oral/aural com-
ponents have found the interactivity and ability to hear others as the main
attractions of real-time meetings on e-learning (e.g. Haythornthwaite and
Kazmer, 2004). In e-learning in general, text has led the way, partly for technical
considerations (e.g. slow Internet connections lead to video and even audio
delays that make real-time interaction unworkable) and partly because the edu-
cational emphasis on text tends to place audio and video modalities second in
importance and relevance.
As Stuckey and Barab suggest in this volume, to move away from single, text-
mode communication for e-learning requires both social and technical planning.
Multimodality occurs naturally in face-to-face settings, transparently combining
visual, oral, aural and other physical cues with immediacy of communication.
1
Not so online. E-multimodality or multimedia must be planned, making choices

between presentation via text, audio and/or video connection, as well as working
out the social logistics of synchronicity, turn taking, and cross-modal interaction
(e.g. live audio with text chat for questions, recorded video with audio questions
and asynchronous text response). However, as multimedia options expand
online, e-learning can move away from the notion that to learn something must
be to abstract it, classify it, and simplify it. Instead, learning could be conceived
as a framed activity, that entails bringing to the frame an open mind, willingness
to learn, and a degree of concentration necessary to learn. In addition, learning
would be expressible or (more likely) recastable in a different medium or media;
and thus assessable, if necessary. Whole experiences may be captured and dis-
seminated in multimodal formats, including moving image, sound, and text.
However, the ability to include everything, from everywhere leads quickly to
information overload. Like the writer Borges’s mnemonist, we would need
whole days to evaluate others’ experiences of whole days. Thus, issues of selec-
tivity come more to the fore, particularly in choosing what real-time capture to
spend time viewing.
Information and communication technologies

In considering the ‘e’ side of e-learning, we need to address the products that
have been made to store, access, and use information and which support the
information and communication activities of e-learning. Computer use in e-
learning is, at the most immediate level, experienced via software. Computers
run on operating systems, like Windows, Linux or MacOS which provide the
basic architecture. Specific software packages for particular purposes, like word
processing, games, and spreadsheets created by commercial enterprises or col-
laborative efforts in open source computing, run on the foundation provided by
the operating system. Collections of applications are then brought together into
single environments – virtual learning environments, Collaborative Virtual
Environments (CVEs), course management systems – with a common look and
feel that signifies entry into a particular set of norms, practices and participants.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 10
Computer interfaces provide the entré into online environments. At their best
for information access they are easy to use, follow known conventions, are con-
sistent, and support both the novice and advanced user; at their best, for
communication, they allow seamless interaction with others through computers
rather than with the computer. This is not the place to recapitulate the extensive
work in human computer interaction (HCI; see, for example, Nielsen, 1994;
Carroll, 2002), but it is the place to point out the importance of the interface in
the user’s experience of the e-learning environment. Upcoming research issues
include not just what the best computer interface is for particular learning envi-
ronments, but also how these will scale to handheld devices, provide
interoperability between devices, and convergence of technologies on single
devices (e.g. laptops, palmtops and third-generation (3G) mobile phones).
Before computing, our electronic communication devices included the phone
(dating from the 1870s), radio (1890s), and television (1920s). The advent of the
computer (1940s) and its desktop (early 1980s), laptop (late 1980s), palmtop
(1990s), and PDA/3G phone (2000s) versions have brought increased and
extended mediated access to information as well as, more recently, convergence
with communication devices. In particular, the palmtop computer (or PDA) and
third-generation (3G) mobile phones are converging, not only using advanced
digital technology to access and use all three modes of communication
described earlier (text, sound, image), but also to function as radios and televi-
sions. Of course, none of this mobility would be possible without the rise of
network infrastructures, including phone networks, computer cable networks,
and wireless networks, as well as the accepted standards for communicating
along these networks and rendering data on devices. Again, the history is too
vast to discuss here (for further reading, see, for example, Abbate, 1999).
These multimodal devices suggest the future for ICT and e-learning. However,
at present, they are little used. When we refer to e-learning and ICT, it is still, at
this early point of the twenty-first century, the (increasingly wireless) desktop or
laptop computer that is central to our concerns. While the small display features
of palmtops and mobile phones may not be the major platform for e-learners,
their existence suggests trends in how, when, and where we access information
and communicate with others. These general trends cannot help but affect the
habits of e-learners and thus also of e-learning instructors and administrators.
(For more on mobile learning, see Sharples, Taylor and Vavoula, this volume.)
As well as the technology advances noted above, ICT for e-learning also
includes many new and emerging technologies specifically designed to support
learning activities. These include in-class tools such as the electronic whiteboards
noted above; large tablet displays that accept and project writing on top of pre-for-
matted data so notes can be added during presentations; and clickers used by
students to vote for their answers to questions. Added to these are the new online
games used as media for learning and communication (see McFarlane, this
volume), immersive technologies for virtual world and whole-body interaction,
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 11
and blogs and wikis as media for class writing and collaborative writing. We note
these few here to highlight the rapidly expanding technological base that is evolv-
ing in conjunction with learning both in and outside the traditional classroom.
Features and affordances

Technologies are useful to the extent that they allow users – instructors, stu-
dents, administrators – to achieve their goals. Sometimes technology facilitates
application in education, sometimes it inhibits it. In discussing the use of tech-
nology, many analysts turn to Gaver’s (1996) use of the term affordances
(following Gibson, 1979; see also Norman, 1988) to make the distinction
between the explicit features of technology and what these allow or facilitate for
users. Explicit features of ICTs include such things as whether multiple modes
are supported; whether design is for single or group use; whether interaction is
effected through the keyboard, mouse, joystick or glove; whether data storage
and retrieval occur to and from the Internet or on the local desktop. What a tech-
nology affords are ways of communicating and connecting with others, being
visible in the online context, viewing and using data and information, creating
and displaying content, and linking with others and with resources.
Affordances signify the possibilities for users, but, for these to become real-
ity, systems must actually be used. Yet, in keeping with much that has been
written about the adoption of technologies (Rogers, 1995), users may resist new
uses, may not know how to use new features, or may avoid them as too compli-
cated or incompatible with previous practice. Some of the affordances listed
above are social affordances that provide possibilities for awareness and co-
ordinated action with others (Bradner et al., 1999). These affordances may be
particularly difficult to enact because users need to work together to create col-
lective uses that are of benefit to the group as a whole. In these cases, some
users may need to lead use by seeding a shared database, starting discussion and
activity on a listserv, or modelling communication behaviours until a critical
mass of users and behaviours is established (Connolly and Thorn, 1990;
Haythornthwaite, 2002a, b, 2005; Markus, 1990). Social affordances are of par-
ticular relevance for e-learning since instructors strive to be aware of students
and their contributions, and collaborative learning advocates promote the advan-
tages of peer-to-peer awareness, exchange, and engagement (e.g. Bruffee, 1993;
Koschmann, 1996; Koschmann et al., 2002; Miyake, this volume). Thus, rather
than looking only at the features of a medium, it is important to examine what
these features mean for users of the environment.
As an example of this issue, we take the key feature of asynchronicity and see
what this affords for communication and e-learning.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 12
Asynchronous technology and its affordances for e-learning

Perhaps one of the most talked about characteristics of computer-mediated com-
munication and, one might argue, the most transformative is the ability to carry
on conversations asynchronously. To be completely correct, asynchronous com-
munication is in fact an affordance based on systems designed to store and
retrieve messages. Computer technologies such as e-mail, listservs, bulletin
boards, blogs, and wikis store messages for retrieval, review and response at
times of the user’s making. For the user, these each afford anytime communica-
tion. Depending on the availability of computing and networks, they can also
afford anywhere communication. The applications differ in their affordances for
routing messages specifically to others. For e-mail, unique identifiers for
senders and receivers route messages to just the specified audience. In listservs
and bulletin boards, posters are identified, but receivers may gain access more
generally by entering passwords to view all posted information. The same is true
of postings on blogs and wikis, although their use is more prevalent without
password protection and thus anyone with computer and Web access can view
the posted information in the same way as other kinds of Web pages.
These differences across these media may appear subtle, but each system
affords different visibilities of messages, senders, and audience, which in turn
afford different kinds of uses. E-mail affords privacy and control of readership
(notwithstanding legal precedence for access to e-mail archives), which in turn
may encourage discussion of more sensitive, personal information. Bulletin
boards provide threading, grouping topics as they are discussed, affording easier
review of message history. Blogs afford easy posting to the Web and a stage on
which to perform for a broad, unspecified audience. Identifiers for senders and
receivers may range from a set of anonymous-looking numbers to user-selected
‘handles’ that afford self-expression about identity or character. They may be
easily traceable to the actual individual or provide protection from actual identi-
fication. Individuals may use one or many identifiers to present themselves to
others, deliberately or by accumulation maintaining multiple identities within
one type of medium (e.g. as we keep multiple e-mail addresses on various e-
mail servers). Groups of receivers may be indicated by single names, e.g. when
sending to a listserv address, obscuring whether the message is being sent to a
few or many others. Thus identifiers can afford anonymity, role playing, and dis-
guise, and can equally afford open identification.
Contemporary computing has made it possible to use many kinds of devices
to interact with servers where messages are stored. This affords mobility. A
poster no longer needs to be hardwired from their desktop to the institution’s
servers, but instead can access systems on and via the Web, through wireless
communication initiated on their laptop, palmtop, or mobile phone. Mobility of
individuals also means distribution of participants. Online engagement of this
kind does not specify how many learners can be in the engagement at any one
time, nor where they are embedded at the time they are members of the learning
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 13
community. They could be accessing the engagement for different periods of

time each, from different machines (desktop, laptop, palmtop, phone), in differ-
ent situations (café, home, hilltop, bus, etc.) and in different locations around the
world. This affords the opportunity to bring in experiences from these different
locations and suggests the ability to apprentice locally at the same time as
obtaining education remotely. Thus the notion of ‘situated learning’ (Lave and
Wenger, 1991) is not abandoned, but instead is given new identity through e-
learning. It now operates at two levels: the local embedding, potentially
leveraging an apprenticeship (see Kazmer, this volume) and the online embed-
ding, creating an apprenticeship in the ways and means of online interaction and
in the online practices of a future professional or interest-based community.
Thus the ‘situation’ provides a dual education – in the subject and the online
environment (Haythornthwaite et al., 2000) – and the potential for a dual
apprenticeship in the local and online communities. Such contextualizing will
come into play again later in this chapter, when we address theoretical issues.
ICTs also afford a new rhythm of interaction, one that differs from face-to-
face and classroom dynamics. Many find the new rhythm liberating, but others
decry the loss of immediacy. What underpins much of the discussion of the pros
and cons of asynchronous, distributed education is the degree of interactivity
provided by these various modes and means of communication. Interactivity can
best be characterized by depicting a spectrum of degrees relating to both what
the technology affords for the granularity of interactivity and interactivity
among participants in online communities.
Interactivity with ICT devices ranges from low-degree – as occurs in interactive
television or touch-screen panels, where operations are limited to a few functional
buttons – to a high degree of interactivity, as might be found for situations in
which virtual reality headsets and hand controls provide fine-grained manipula-
tions. Typical practice in the use of a computer interface would be somewhere
between these two extremes, but such interaction is often taken for granted. It is
usually mediated via a conventional typewriter-derived keyboard (though there are
other kinds, like concept keyboards). The user’s input, whether via a keyboard or
via a point-and-click mouse, is a significant limitation on the degree of interactiv-
ity possible. A mouse, for example, can point only to operations that have already
been programmed into the computer; whereas a keyboard allows the textual possi-
bilities of language to be exploited. However, a keyboard can be a barrier to
communication for those who find its operation cumbersome (e.g. those with
physical disabilities). In such cases, speech recognition technologies might yet
prove to play a major part in interactivity. However, although available for some
time, such technologies have yet to attain a sufficient degree of sensitivity to the
varieties of the voice to become easy-to-use and reliable interface devices, and
they have not yet become standard with a computer purchase.
This approach to interactivity describes the affordances of the technology, but
interactivity also has a social, communicative dimension, one that may or may
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 14
not be achieved in practice. Interactivity can depend on the immediacy of ques-

tion and response. This is inherently delayed in asynchronous settings compared
to synchronous settings. Yet social norms about response times and social prac-
tices to respond in a timely manner go a long way to increasing the perceived
interactivity of online communication. Rafaeli and Sudweeks (1997) use the
term ‘interactivity’ to address responsive behaviour in communication, viewing
this as a likely process that explains cohesion in online groups. As they state,
Interactivity is not a characteristic of the medium. It is a process-related construct about com-

munication. It is the extent to which messages in a sequence relate to each other, and
especially the extent to which later messages recount the relatedness of earlier messages …
Interactivity describes and prescribes the manner in which conversational interaction as an iter-
ative process leads to jointly produced meaning. Interactivity merges speaking with listening.
(online, n.p.)
Thus key issues to bear in mind regarding interactivity are not only what the
technology affords for iterative and respondent processes but also the extent to
which responsiveness is actually achieved using the medium.
Overall, posting messages for storage through contemporary networked com-
puting affords the presentation of self online, sometimes anonymously and
always pseudonymously (at least to the extent an e-mail address is a pseudo-
nym), usually abiding by group communication conventions, and originating
from any computer device, located anywhere with Internet access, at any time of
the day or night. These are the essential elements bound up in the terms ‘asyn-
chronous communication’ and ‘asynchronous learning’; it is the reason the area
is called asynchronous learning networks, signifying the computer network, but
perhaps more importantly the social network that sustains learning efforts
(Harasim et al., 1995; Hiltz, Turoff and Harasim, this volume). Thus, more than
anytime, anywhere input, it is anytime, anywhere access to a community where
conventions and common interests reside and where individuals pull together to
define the way their community will work. We will return to the notion of the
community of enquiry below, when we consider the ‘learning’ side of the e-
learning equation, and when discussing theoretical models.
Beyond asynchronous
Text-based asynchronous communication is not the only option for e-learning.
As outlined above many new technologies make it possible to include audio, still
and moving images into e-learning offerings, both from the instructor side, with
formally produced audio or video, and from the student side, with informally
produced pictures, audio, and video. Also as noted, including multimodal com-
munication in e-learning requires planning. It also requires an understanding of
the affordances that make such planning worthwhile. This is an area of research
that deserves more attention from a learning perspective and that can inform the
introduction of new media into e-learning offerings.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 15
Synchronous communication is found in many e-learning environments,

including text, audio and video transmissions. Audio-conferencing has been
with us for a while; new meeting software systems and better networking infra-
structures now make video-conferencing a reality for multiple participants at
multiple sites (e.g. Internet2 in the US, http://www.internet2.edu/). Synchronous
text-based interaction is most prevalent and most available at present. Internet
chat, instant messaging and more recently the short message text (SMS) avail-
able on mobile phones are examples. Text chat is used in e-learning for live class
sessions that permit all participants to type and enter comments simultaneously.
This kind of interaction underpins popular multi-player games (Multi-User
Dungeons or Dimension, MUDs) and is increasingly used for online confer-
ences. Extensions add graphical interfaces to create virtual worlds for gaming
(Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, MMORPG; and Virtual
Reality, VR), which are also being adopted and adapted for education.
Not only new technologies, but also new venues are opening up for e-
learning. Where e-learning inherits from distance learning (see Thompson, this
volume) it is taken to be synonymous with online interaction only, happening
away from educational settings such as classrooms. However, the continued pen-
etration of Internet use into everyday life, combined in some instances with
increased familiarity with online education, has led to a reverse trend of incor-
porating online features into on-campus classrooms. This trend in blended
learning is developing strongly as students entering higher education are
increasingly computer-savvy and highly conversant with online communication.
What is emerging is a spectrum of different combinations of e-learning with
conventional learning. The term ‘blended learning’ has appeared to indicate prac-
tices that sit in the middle of the spectrum between online, distributed approaches
at one end and traditional, face-to-face teaching at the other. At the distributed
end, a course or programme can be entirely delivered and engaged with electroni-
cally. Every stage of the process of learning, from enquiry about the course to
registration, from access to the materials to their use, from the submission of
assignments to their marking, and so on to the final award of the degree or other
qualification, could be handled electronically, via a computer interface. Such
engagement could include synchronous communication or it could be handled
without any synchronicity. In theory, as well as in practice, a course or programme
could replicate the notion of the correspondence course in which the learner acted
individually and had very little contact with teachers, lecturers or fellow students.
Moving along the spectrum, many online programmes build some face-to-
face interaction (i.e., including physical proximity as well as synchronous
engagement) into their schedule of largely electronic contact. For example, a
programme might begin with a short residential course in which the learning
community (lecturers, students, administrators) get to know each other, engage
in joint learning and set up contacts and allegiances which they will develop
electronically while taking the degree. They might meet again for a week after
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 16
one year and again for a week towards the end of the programme. Such a pattern
is a type of blended learning. However, nothing is actually blended in such a
model. Rather, there is a combination of types of learning situations.
A mid-point on the spectrum would be a course or programme that was
divided fifty–fifty between e-learning and conventional learning, in whatever
forms those types of learning took.
Towards the other end of the spectrum, e-learning can be used as a support
for more conventional types of learning. An example would be a conventional
undergraduate programme that provided reading material, a chat room, feedback
facilities and e-mail contact with the lecturer or tutor in support of the pro-
gramme. The Internet is there as a resource for electronic searching; some
programmes provide guides or portals to enable students to access relevant data-
bases, Web sites and other resources.
Finally, at the far end of the spectrum is conventional learning, by which we
mean non-electronically mediated learning, fully offline, requiring no Internet
access, online communication or online resource delivery. Even as we write we
cannot imagine such a situation for higher education. Only retreats beyond the
reach of Internet access and without the power to recharge portable devices
could now fit this bill. As for fully online learning, we imagine the benefits of
including use of ICTs in learning will be best achieved when attention is paid to
the affordances of the technologies. Again, there is much research yet to be done
on looking at these affordances for learning.
We end this section on e-learning by emphasizing again the need to consider
the way technologies have modified – for better or for worse – the way informa-
tion is recorded, stored, disseminated, and reviewed. E-learning as a whole is no
more or less of a transformation than the one that takes place when knowledge is
packaged for conventional learning and disseminated in a physical classroom; it
is, however, a different transformation, and that is what we are all in the throes
of living through and researching.
We turn now to address the ‘learning’ side of the e-learning enterprise.
THE ‘LEARNING’ IN E-LEARNING
The second element in the ‘e-learning’ equation is learning itself. While this is
not the place for a consideration of the various theories of learning per se, it is
necessary to say briefly what we mean by learning. We recognize that there is
already much material on learning theory relevant to e-learning (e.g. work on
collaborative learning, Bruffee, 1993, and computer-supported collaborative
learning, Koschmann, 1996), and discussion of this and the nature of (e)learning
will take place in the chapters of the Handbook, particularly those on modes and
models of learning, and communities of learning. Here we highlight four gen-
eral aspects of learning.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 17
First, learning is a personal and social/political transformative act in which

new knowledge is gained by the learner. The degree of transformation is critical
to the kinds of learning that will take place. For example, the learning of a new
fact by rote may in itself constitute a fairly minor transformative function, and
thus be seen as learning to a small degree (accretive, gradual, a step forward).
However, at some point such a small step might afford a more extensive vista.
The analogy is the poet Alexander Pope’s: that learning is like climbing a moun-
tain, often in the mist. Steps are small, uphill, and hard work; but every now and
again larger vistas open up, each one more extensive than the last. When such an
expansive vista opens to the learner, the transformation can be said to be greater.
The nature of the transformation can be purely intellectual, and/or it can be (a
combination of) emotional, spiritual, physical.
Second, although learning is experienced by the individual, it is essentially an
effect of community: not only is knowledge generated and preserved by a commu-
nity throughout history, it is also learnt as an effect of being part of a community
(Bourdieu, 1986; Crook, 2002; Haythornthwaite, 2006 Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky,
1986). Some of the knowledge will be tacit, some will be explicit. The kinds of
communities in which knowledge is made and transferred are varied: some are
relatively informal, like families and peer groups; others are institutionalized and
formal like schools or universities. Knowledge is packaged differently in these
different communities, and also gained and tested differently. It is one of the
main preoccupations of the present Handbook to define and explore the elec-
tronic communities in which e-learning takes place, considering them in relation
to non-electronically mediated communities but also moving beyond a polarized
distinction between online and offline communities to chart the new territory of
e-learning. Indeed, this latter topic is a major area for research in e-learning, both
theoretically and empirically.
Third, in order to distinguish it from experience, the transformative aspect of
learning takes place in relation to bodies of knowledge. This does not mean to
say that all knowledge is outside the learner because learning may take the form
of enhanced self-knowledge; but it does mean that the learning is given defini-
tion by the way it transforms the learner in relation to knowledge of some kind.
Hence learning and knowledge are inextricably related. To be able to say ‘I now
know that …’ is to acknowledge that learning stands in relation to what was
known before by the individual learner and also in relation to what is known and
recognized as knowledge by a wider community.
Fourth, in keeping with the transformative and community aspects of learning,
we add that knowledge is not simply delivered to a learner. The transformative act
creates new knowledge that is the product of a learner’s (or learners’) research and
exploration in territory previously unrecognized or uncharted. But this journey is
not taken alone. New knowledge is tested against the world – the physical world,
the social world, or the mental world of others’ ideas – and so modified through
practice, discussion, use, and interaction (Cook and Brown, 1999; Engeström,
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 18
1999a, b). In this interaction we find the community action on learning as a whole
and knowledge development for all members of the community.
Of the four aspects of learning, it is probably the second – the nature and
effect of the community of learners – that is the most distinctive in an e-learning
environment. It is here that notions of distance learning come to the fore (as they
had already in extension classes in the late nineteenth century; and via corre-
spondence courses, for example those of the UK’s Open University from the
1970s). E-learning allows the learners that make up a community to be far-flung
in terms of physical distance, but also, as discussed earlier in this introduction,
to operate asynchronously as well as synchronously. The fact of physical dis-
tance between learners and a lecturer/teacher, mediated by chat rooms, Web
logs, e-mail, and other forms of group communication, means that: interaction
can be recorded for future reference; learners operate largely from their comput-
ers or mobile devices; that physicality is largely absent; text, image, and sound
provide the major modes through which communication happens; co-learners in
the community may never meet face-to-face; the learning experienced is not sit-
uated in the physical, contextual ways we have come to expect; and contexts
outside the classroom probably play a larger part in the learning experience than
might be the case in a traditional programme or course conducted on the prem-
ise of regular, co-located, face-to-face meetings.
FROM ‘E’ + ‘LEARNING’ TO E-LEARNING
We have discussed the ‘e’ and ‘learning’ in e-learning, but this separation to dis-
cuss the technical, computer-based means of delivery and social perspectives on
learning must now be recombined to consider the social and technological con-
struct that is e-learning.
E-learning
E-learning is not a computer system. You cannot buy it off the shelf and plug it in.
You cannot hand it to network administrators and be done with the job. To have an
e-learning system means having people talking, writing, teaching, and learning
with each other online, via computer-based systems. While e-learning is usually
found implemented via a suite of software tools, such implementation is only the
surface of the e-learning environment. E-learning encompasses any and all means
of communication available to participants, from dedicated course management
systems to late-night phone calls and e-mail in the early hours of the morning, from
instructor-prepared lectures to collaborative products generated through discussion
boards, blogs and wikis. E-learning is a leaky system; it spreads to take advantage
of any and all opportunities for communicating, learning, and seeking resources,
and, like an invasive species, turns up in many places not traditionally associated
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 19
with formal instruction – the kitchen table, coffee shop, workplace, hotel room on
corner of the bedroom. Through instructor and student push-and-pull, e-learning
colonizes new technologies and new spaces, with each new generation of technolo-
gies providing, but also creating demand for, new kinds of delivery (e.g. gaming
environments, podcasting based on MP3 players, video streaming and mobility
inherent in cell and mobile phones, PDAs, and laptops).
The question then remains – what does define and distinguish e-learning?
The HEFCE definition cited at the start of this chapter is a good starting place,
but some modification is needed. E-learning needs to be more than the ‘use of
technologies’ and it is more than a ‘communications and delivery tool … to sup-
port students and improve the management of learning’. At its best, e-learning is
a reconceptualization of learning that makes use of not only instructor-led peda-
gogy but all the flexibility that asynchronous, multi-party contribution can
bring. At its worst, e-learning is a substitution of one delivery mechanism for
another; but even such implementations will be overwhelmed by the demands
and expectations of users (both instructors and learners) and will change
through social contracts, disuse, and idiosyncratic use. E-learning is continu-
ously emergent, emanating from the possibilities of ICT in the hands of
administrators, instructors, and learners, and created and recreated by use. The
2
forms and shapes of technology, learning, and technology-in-use for learning

co-evolve, one pushing, pulling, and modifying the other.
This co-evolutionary view emphasizes the social and emergent nature of e-
learning, i.e., the way people, operating with and through ICT, in communication
and interaction with others, form what e-learning means. This is the core of our
definition of e-learning. As such, it puts stand-alone learning programmes at the
periphery; although successful learning can result from computer-based learning
systems, such as self-paced tutorials, these are not centrally what e-learning is
about. Similarly, use of ICT for resource delivery is not e-learning even though it
is part of the e-learning phenomenon, just as delivery of books is not teaching
although library collections are part of the learning activity. Teaching and teaching
presence are essential parts of e-learning (Garrison and Anderson, 2003) and thus
e-learning is more than delivery alone. Finally, e-learning is not (just) computer-
mediated communication, in the same way that learning is not (just) conversation,
although both are important in e-learning as a whole. The directed, purposeful
pursuit of understanding, with resultant changes in knowledge, skill and/or prac-
tice, are inherent in learning and thus also in e-learning.
E–learning is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon. Its scope includes the
entirety of the social and technical system, from administrative decisions to systems
developers, curriculum designers, and learners at the kitchen table. A range of edu-
cational systems and practices falls within e-learning. Children and adolescents are
addressed in K-12/pre-school to senior high school/sixth-form online teaching and
learning, as in virtual high schools (e.g. Zucker et al., 2003); young and not-so-
young adults are addressed through full- and part-time education in community
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 20
colleges, training colleges, post-secondary undergraduate and graduate pro-

grammes. E-learning includes formally structured, degree-based programmes, as
well as non-degree, continuing education programmes in museums, art galleries and
other locations; and in proprietary in-house corporate training systems.
E-learning may be implemented to take advantage of as many technologies as
possible, or only a few. Thus we include in e-learning single application addi-
tions to traditional teaching, such as electronic voting systems that add
interactivity to large face-to-face lectures, online discussion added to on-campus
courses, and myriad other blended learning configurations. E-learning may
involve students and faculty geographically located on or off-campus, at a dis-
tance from each other and campus, or distributed with no corresponding
physical campus. Distance may be as close as the local dormitory room, or as
remote as thousands of miles away, from sites accessing the latest in Internet
connectivity to those with less than perfect networking capabilities. Indeed,
defining the campus may be a challenge, not only for locating the physical home
of an online university, but also where rapidly emerging, multi-institutional pro-
grammes include students enrolled from many different campuses.
Social processes and technology

Researchers have been examining the interplay of social processes and ICTs for
many years, building on a foundation of study of social processes and workplace
interventions that include the ‘time and motion’ studies by Taylor (1911), the
wiring room group behaviour studies by Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939) and
the longwall miners studies by Trist and Bamford (1951) and the Tavistock
group. These studies laid a foundation for identifying the importance of context
in the presentation of technology in use and the recognition that similar tech-
nologies will take dissimilar forms depending on the social, political, and
institutional contexts in which they are implemented. This has become known as
a ‘socio-technical systems’ approach. It is popular in management for jointly
optimizing the social and technical systems in the workplace.
With the advent of computing, the socio-technical perspective became an
important approach for understanding changes in work practices brought about
by the implementation of computer systems (see Whitworth’s chapter in this
volume). As researchers looked at early computing systems they noted a number
of issues that still factor into contemporary uses and presentations of ICT. These
are reviewed briefly here because the history of the progression of computer
systems provides background to the kinds of processes seen in current systems
and helps tease out where effects of ICT on learning may be found.
Early computing systems were designed with the primary purpose of
automating office processes, reproducing paper-based systems for the mainte-
nance of records and automating the production of statistical reports. Terms like
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 21
‘electronic data processing’ captured the essence of these computing applica-

tions. However, as Zuboff (1988) observed, these systems began to informate as
they automated. With the rise of computing also came a rise in the observability
of processes; and then of systems to process these observations, including statis-
tical analyses and benchmarking of human performance. Zuboff eloquently
demonstrated the impact of this computerization on individuals at work. Clerical
workers who had worked in social groups now found themselves isolated at
computer terminals, entering data on their own. Their productivity could now be
assessed in terms of keystrokes. The social impact of this instance of computeri-
zation was both the isolation of data entry personnel and increased monitoring
of the minutiae of performance.
Technological determinists see such changes as the inevitable outcome of
technology, with human activity shaped by the technologies that are imposed on
them. Others see technology use as more malleable and affected by strategies of
individual or joint human action: strategies such as non-use, or more compli-
cated appropriations of the technology to local contexts (Danziger et al., 1982;
Rice and Rogers, 1980; Rogers, 1995; Rogers et al., 1977). These two sides are
often portrayed against each other – technology determining social behaviour, or
social behaviour determining technology – with neither technology nor social
behaviour changing. This approach to computing followed earlier work in man-
agement trying to find the best task–technology fit, where the technology was
the kind of organizational structure and process most appropriate for the manu-
facturing task at hand (e.g. Thompson, 1967), taking into consideration the
nature of the incoming raw materials and the needed transformation process to
create outputs (Perrow, 1970) and the context in which the work took place (e.g.
contingency theory, Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967).
This idea of looking for fit was transferred directly to examination of comput-
ing implementations because the data management capabilities of information
technologies (IT) reconfigured organizational structures and processes. For a
while there was an effort to explore computer system–organization fit, including
communication–technology fit (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Trevino et al., 1990).
Studies of fit in the computing arena are best summed up in notions of organiza-
tional validity and invalidity, used to refer to how well the computing system
corresponded to existing organizational structures and what could or should be
done about it (Markus and Robey, 1983; Noble and Newman, 1993). Noble and
Newman (1993) in particular noted that where fit was not made, the system could
change, the people could change, or both could change. The socio-technical sys-
tems approach to computing emerges from this kind of observation: aligning
social practices and technological support in the service of work outcomes is the
essence of socio-technical systems evaluation, an approach that begins to make
headway in thinking about systems design and implementation.
But, it is not enough to view the problem as one of accommodation, of
making technology ‘fit’ the social or vice versa, or even of simultaneous adjust-
ment, in part because this assumes a knowing observer, and relatively stable and
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 22
identifiable social/technical conditions. However, the rapid development of

computing technology, at first the personal computer revolution and now the
mobile technology revolution, have pushed change ahead of planned fit, making
developers out of users. Grass-roots movements such as Usenet, the Web and
open-source software show that systems and use have a general, societal-level
implementation that is under the control of no one organization or entity. New
practices are emerging at a societal level that influence what can be done, and
what is expected, within any organization or institution.
A number of systems design approaches emerged during the 1980s and early
1990s that have strongly influenced approaches to computerization. These
include workplace studies that articulate everyday workplace processes, using
this as input to systems design that better reflects actual practice (e.g. Luff et al.,
2000; Suchman, 1987), participatory design that brings the user into the design
process rather than leaving the process to systems specialists alone (also known
as user-centred design, e.g. see the work by Pelle Ehn, Morton Kyng) and shared
cognition, with its emphasis on joint processes of learning and collaboration
(e.g. Engeström and Middleton, 1996; Resnick et al., 1991 and Whitworth in
this volume, who suggests that the social shaping of technology can be a con-
tested process). Systems development has changed from a priori definition of
all operations in a sequence of systems analysis, design and implementation to
more responsive and flexible design techniques such as rapid prototyping and
scenario-based design. Whole sectors of computer science have emerged to
engage with human–computer issues, such as Human–Computer Interaction
(HCI, or CHI) which centres on interface design (e.g. Nielsen, 1994; Carroll,
2002), and Computer Supported Co operative Work (CSCW) with its attention
to systems for working jointly with others in and through online applications
(e.g. Baecker, 1993; Bannon and Schmidt, 1991; Crabtree et al., 2005; Schmidt
and Bannon, 1992; see also the proceedings of the CSCW and ECSCW
(European) conferences). Research in Computer-Mediated Communication
(CMC), which examines behaviour in and through computer media (for a
review, see Herring, 2002), owes much of its heritage to the initiators of the
CSCW field with their focus on understanding social processes and collabora-
tive work on the way to designing support systems.
Examination of computing systems has also inherited from historical and
sociological studies of technology, particularly in areas known as Social Studies
of Technology (SST), Social Studies of Science (SSS) and Social Construction
of Technology (SCOT). Work in this area is not limited to computers; some clas-
sic work has looked at how the particular design of bicycles we know today
came about (Bijker, 1995). These areas look more broadly at how science and
technology are constructed in society, and how this works with, and affects,
society. Reviewing this area is beyond the scope of this chapter, but the attention
these researchers give to the shaping of technology is an important construct for
considering the place and presentation of e-learning technologies, and should
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 23
prove a useful resource for researchers interested in this perspective. (For further
reading, see, for example, Bijker et al., 1987; MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1985;
Pinch and Bijker, 1984; Williams and Edge, 1996).
Collectively, these approaches have provided a more holistic view of systems
development: one that sees the social and technical sides of computerization not
as two immutables in tension, but as two forces each shaping the other. As a
whole, these new approaches to development and analysis of the unfolding of
systems, plus the co-evolution of social and technical practices, are being gath-
ered under the name social informatics.
Social informatics is one of two theoretical perspectives we find particularly
relevant for e-learning. The other is rhetorical theory, which focuses on the rela-
tion between speaker, audience, and subject matter. Both of these are discussed
at length in the next section as we turn now to look at theories that inform an e-
learning research agenda.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
As noted at the outset of this introduction, our aim here and in the following
chapters is to address the transformative effects of e-learning with a focus on
research problems and challenges. In defining and building a research agenda
for e-learning, it is necessary to find the theoretical base that informs evolving
processes in a rapidly advancing technological environment, yet also addresses
the kind of transformative activity that is entailed in e-learning and e-learning
communities. Some key questions can be asked. What theories are useful for
examining and understanding e-learning? Where does e-learning research fit in
terms of theory? What are the parameters of the field? What are or will be our
theories of e-learning? Is research conducted about the technology or via the
technology – or both? These questions are essential for the conduct of research
programmes, whether at masters and doctoral level or in terms of larger-scale
joint research projects.
We make a start here on describing theoretical frameworks for e-learning. We
do not attempt in this Handbook a ‘grand theory’ of e-learning, as we feel that
the field is not in a sufficiently mature state for such theorizing; however, at the
end of the section we present a number of questions that will help research move
toward an overarching theory (or theories) in the field. Other chapters in the
Handbook continue this theoretical framing. There are yet more theories that
may prove useful for understanding the e-learning phenomenon coming from
the fields and sub-fields of education, information science, communication,
computer science, management, psychology, and sociology, to name a few.
While we begin the process here, we expect more and new theories to be
brought to bear on e-learning in the future.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 24
As far as the electronic dimension of the field goes, communications theory

and social informatics provide important perspectives. Communications theory
is not a coherent field with a competing and/or convergent set of theories under-
pinning it. Rather, it draws on contemporary rhetorical theory and other sources
to map out the nature and functions of the communicative acts that take place.
Thus we begin with outlining the basics of rhetorical theory.
Rhetorical theory
Late twentieth-century thinking in the field of rhetoric sees it as an overarching
theory that has a long tradition (Corbett, 1965), is grounded in historical and politi-
cal change (Eagleton, 1983), has a pragmatic, Aristotelian pedigree rather than an
idealist, Platonic one (Vickers, 1988), is centrally concerned with the arts of dis-
course (Andrews, 1992) and, through ICT, is intimately connected with democracy
(Lanham, 1992) and argumentation. Contemporary rhetoric is concerned with the
relationship among three key elements: the speaker/writer, the audience, and the
subject matter. This communicative triangle (Kinneavy, 1971) enables exploration
and definition of the purpose of the communicative act, as well as the possibility of
investigation of the means by which the communication takes place. A key term in
contemporary rhetoric is dialogue, deriving from the Greek for through
speech/logic rather than from any notion of two people speaking.
Rhetoric can be used to analyse communication once it has taken place and
also to predict (in ancient and medieval times, to prescribe) the patterns and
means of communication that might be necessary in a particular situation.
Behind such an understanding of the nature and purposes of communication is
the philosophy of Habermas (1984), with his theory of communicative action
and the function of argumentation (a subsection of rhetoric) in a society to bring
about consensus before action.
Why is rhetoric a useful foundation for considering what happens in e-learning?
All e-learning is contextualized, as suggested earlier in this introduction with refer-
ence to the work of Lave and Wenger (1991). It takes place in particular situations.
Describing the contingencies and particularities of those situations is important
because not all e-learning acts are the same. E-learning varies the relationship
among the elements of speaker/writer, audience, and the ‘thing to be communi-
cated’. For example, a single teacher, lecturer, or course e-tutor may at one time
address a whole class of e-learners; at other times, the communication may be one-
to-one; and at yet other times, a single e-learner may send a message to the class as
a whole on a bulletin board or as part of an ongoing dialogue. While these patterns
of communication are no different in some respects from their face-to-face ver-
sions, the asynchrony available to e-learners potentially makes for a more reflective
dynamic. Critically, from the audience’s point of view in rhetorical theory, the
reader/student/e-learner is more in control of the rhetorical process. Readers can
choose when and whether they will respond to others or to the communication.
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Rhetorical theory has already been used as a platform for understanding

online communication. Studies have applied rhetorical concepts such as genres
and discourse communities (Bakhtin, [1953] 1986; Frye, [1957] 1969; Miller,
1984, 1994; Swales, 1990) to online communication (Bregman and
Haythornthwaite, 2003; Cherny, 1999; Orlikowski and Yates, 1994; Yates and
Orlikowski, 1992). Concepts such as speech–act theory (Austin, 1962; Searle
1969) have been applied to the formalization of communicative action and
design of communication systems (Flores et al., 1988; Malone et al., 1989;
Winograd and Flores, 1986). However, this application has not been without
controversy because of its overdetermination of actions (see Suchman, 1994;
Winograd, 1994). Genre, rhetorical, and linguistic approaches also underpin the
new rhetoric of persistent conversation (Erickson, 1999), which situates online
communication somewhere between speech and writing.
Thus, rhetorical theory, with its basis in purposive communication and its
recent application to communication via ICTs, is an important starting point for
applying theory to e-learning. In what follows, we draw on Kinneavy’s communi-
cation triangle as a basis for exploring e-learning. The discussion shows how the
simple triangle of interaction between speaker, audience, and communication,
when considered in relation to evolutionary processes of language, technology
and purpose, shows a dynamic system, modified and modifiable by communica-
tors’ actions. The ideas echo those of others who point to the emergent nature of
communication and technology use in group settings (e.g. Poole and DeSanctis’s
(1990) ideas of adaptive structuration which builds on Giddens’s (1984) structura-
tion theory; see also Monge and Contractor, 1997; Orlikowski, 1992).
To explore the emergent nature of communication in e-learning, we start with
Kinneavy’s (1971) basic notion of the communicative triangle, which is depicted
in Figure 1.1: An adaptation of Kinneavy’s model for e-learning (Figure 1.2)
adds elements associating the writer/speaker with the teacher, the audience with
the learners, and the body of knowledge with the ‘substance of communication’
or the ‘thing to be communicated’.
I, the speaker, You, the listener,

writer audience
It, the substance

of communication
Figure 1.1 Kinneavy’s (1971) model of communication

CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 26
Other learners
Asynchronous and interactive
communication; transformation
The teacher/ of knowledge into learning The learner/
writer/speaker audience/listener
Potential for critique

of mediation by
the teacher
Mediation of the Interrogation of

substance of the substance
communication The substance of of communication
(knowledge) by the communication: (knowledge) by
the teacher knowledge the learner
Figure 1.2 Adaptation of Kinneavy’s (1971) model
In this adapted model, learning is conceived as a dialogic and dialectical

exchange, not only between the learner and the teacher, but also between the
learner and the body of knowledge that is being explored. Whereas, in Kinneavy’s
original model, the ‘audience’ was relatively passive; in this model the learner as
audience is in a more powerful, active position in relation to the social dynamics
of learning. He/she can even critique the teacher’s mediation of existing knowl-
edge, as indicated by the box in the middle of the communicative triangle.
Furthermore, he/she is part of a community of enquiry with other learners.
This model not only retains the communicative element in e-learning, but
provides a way of understanding how the individual learner positions him/her-
self in relation to a community of learners, a teacher/lecturer, and a body of
knowledge. The communicative dimension of e-learning is an essential founda-
tion to studies in the field. Moreover, although the model might just as well
apply to learning, the asynchronous possibilities of exchange between learner
and teacher, and between learner and co-learners, enables reflection to become
an integrated part of the actual dialogic interaction between the participants
while in the process of learning. Such reflection is possible in a conventional,
face-to-face classroom, but the immediacy of the classroom environment and its
many contextual cues – lecturer at the head of the class, students in desks,
black/whiteboards and projectors, the presence of other students – and our natu-
ral reluctance to tolerate silence in face-to-face settings weigh against reflection
during class sessions. But asynchronous communication as well as synchronous
computer-mediated communication provides and tolerates a much longer lag
between question and response, an expectation of silence, and a lack of visual
scrutiny while thinking, all of which affords reflection in the learning process.
Another aspect of communication theory that might be helpful in understand-
ing the use of language in e-learning is that made by Austin (1962) in How to
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 27
Do Things with Words, where he makes the distinction between locutionary

speech acts – ‘sayings’ – and illocutionary acts (and their perlocutionary effects)
in which language performs an ‘action’ or ‘does something’. Although the dis-
tinction itself was critiqued by Searle (1969), it remains a potentially useful one
in that it enables distinctions to be drawn between different types of language
use in e-learning. For example, there is a distinct difference between online syn-
chronous ‘chat’ on the one hand, which has a social as well as communicative
function, and asynchronous dialogic exchange on the other, where there is less
emphasis on the social and there may be less attention on the building of a co-
constructed understanding of a particular phenomenon. There is considerable
potential for studies in speech-act theory and e-learning in that the ‘map’ of
communication exchanges in e-learning is yet to be fully charted.
Furthermore, Kinneavy’s adapted model or other theoretical attempts to chart
communication in relation to e-learning can be further adapted in order to better
describe, explain, and analyse the rhetorical dimensions of e-learning. There are
many research projects to be undertaken here and there is much exciting work to
be done.
Social informatics
Social informatics refers to the interdisciplinary study of the design, uses, and consequences
of ICTs that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts.
(Kling et al., 2005: 6)
Social informatics provides another theoretical foundation for addressing e-

learning, deriving not so much from rhetoric and communication theory as from
the sociology of contemporary culture, particularly where it intersects with com-
puting use by groups, organizations, communities, and societies. A few studies
of e-learning using this perspective are just beginning to appear (e.g. Dutton et
al., 2004; see also Haythornthwaite and Kazmer, 2004).
Many fields contribute to the social informatics perspective. Sociology has pro-
vided background pertinent to the study of information systems and e-learning in
studies and theories about diffusion and adoption of innovations (Rogers, 1995),
social construction and social shaping of technology (e.g. MacKenzie and
Wajcman, 1985; Williams and Edge, 1996), activity theory (Engeström and
Middleton, 1996), social networks (Wellman and Berkowitz, 1997) and actor net-
works (Latour, 1987). Perhaps not as well integrated into social informatics, but of
particular importance to e-learning is work on literacy, particularly online literacy
(Andrews, 2004; Hawisher and Selfe, 1999), language (Clark, 1996; Crystal,
2001), linguistics (e.g. Cherny, 1999; Herring, 2002) and genre (Bregman and
Haythornthwaite, 2003; Orlikowski and Yates, 1994). Also important are many dif-
ferent approaches to community from social network definitions (Wellman, 1979,
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1999) to discourse communities (Miller, 1994; Warschauer, 2000), knowledge

communities (e.g. Collins, 1998; Knorr-Cetina, 1999) and communities of practice
(Wenger, 1998). Studies in sociology, linguistics and communication have con-
tributed to our understandings of community and its manifestation online (Baym,
2000; Cherny, 1999; Haythornthwaite et al., 2000; Kendall, 2002; Warschauer,
2003; Wellman, 1997; Wellman et al, 1996), as well as how offline communities
are affected by online interaction (in studies of community networking initiatives
and an area of research now often referred to as community informatics, e.g.
Bishop, 2000; Cohill and Kavanaugh, 2000; Keeble and Loader, 2001 see also the
studies in Wellman and Haythornthwaite, 2002).
New systems of social relationships

These many studies and theories share a common focus on the way new tech-
nologies change social interaction: with new language, meeting places, means of
meeting, and meaning of associations. Castells (2001), for example, argues that
‘a new system of social relationships centred on the individual’ (p. 128) is
emerging, in which the individual creates his or her own individualized commu-
nities in a society which creates emphasis on the individual through the
relationship between capital and labour, between workers and the work process,
and ‘the crisis of patriarchism, and the subsequent disintegration of the nuclear
family’ (p. 129). Although individual networks have existed for a long time, sup-
ported through letters, travel by car and plane, and the telephone (Wellman,
1979, 1999), the Internet in particular has been cited as supporting (and creat-
ing) such individualized sociability (Wellman, 2002; Wellman et al., 1996;
Wellman et al., 2003), with consequent positive or negative effects (e.g. Kraut,
et al., 1998; Kraut, Kiesler et al., 2002; for a review, see Haythornthwaite and
Wellman, 2002). The Internet is effective in maintaining weak ties and perhaps
also instrumental in creating the space or the opportunities in which strong ties
can be made stronger (Haythornthwaite, 2005). Online communities, suggests
Castells (2001), ‘are better understood as networks of sociability, with variable
geometry and changing composition, according to the evolving interests of
social actors and to the shape of the network itself ’ (p. 130). (For a review of
social networks and online community, see Haythornthwaite, forthcoming-b.)
Although Castells (2001) does not address issues of e-learning per se in his
book, the implications for networked communities of learners are clear: e-learning
communities are social communities of a different kind from conventional learning
communities, which may allow the individual to assert him- or herself more at the
centre of a range of networks. Although the individual and his or her learning are
defined by those networks, it is also the case that he or she defines the networks. A
number of e-learning researchers have begun to examine networked aspects of ties
built in association with e-learning (e.g. Aviv et al., 2003; Cho et al., 2002;
Haythornthwaite, 2002a, b; Hrastinski, 2006; Saltz et al., 2004). These studies hold
promise as a theoretical platform on which to build e-learning research.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 29
Exploring the nature of e-learning communities, Haythornthwaite and Kazmer

(2002), in presenting findings about on- and offline relations for e-learning, dis-
cuss the claims and counter-claims that the Internet both ‘reduces involvement
with those whom we share strong, local, interpersonal ties, taking us away from
face-to-face involvement and potentially decreasing our well-being’ and also ‘is
seen as providing the means for increased contact with others’ (p. 434), for exam-
ple with those with whom we share an interest, such as co-learners in a distance
learning programme. They argue that often each side of the argument has been
simplified, the truth of the matter being in elaborately textured networks of strong
and weak ties that change in time (weak ones faster than strong ones). The Internet
is seen, not so much as a social world, ‘but as a medium through which we have
the opportunity to maintain our multiple social worlds’ (p. 442).
Scott and Page (2001) see learning communities as ‘social spaces, physical
and/or virtual, within which users are invited or enabled to engage in a shared
learning process, while respecting the diversity of their knowledge base’ (2001:
152). If, as Scott and Page suggest, learners in such an environment ‘are encour-
aged to set their own learning goals’ (2001: 152) and if such networks encourage
and support individualism, then there are interesting questions to be asked about
the nature of the common experience of e-learners: in particular, can it be said
that an e-learning programme can set such goals itself, or should it err on the
side of the individuals setting their own goals? As ever, some kind of balance
has to be struck; it may be important to determine exactly what the possibilities
of balance are in any e-learning context. Loader (1997) provides further discus-
sion of the governance of cyberspace. One of the many interesting aspects of
that discussion pertains to notions of information polity or informationality,
with clear connections to the nature and accessibility of knowledge, its location
(on- or offline) and its use. Mere accessing of information may not, in itself, be
akin to learning; some transformation of the material into new knowledge for
the individual must, we think, take place if such activities are to be called ‘e-
learning’. Thus the term ‘e-learning’ becomes something greater than the sum of
its parts, inviting research and examination in terms of an independent phenom-
enon rather than a re-purposed version of offline learning.
From social informatics to educational informatics

Extending the principles of social informatics into the learning sphere leads logi-
cally to the adoption of the term educational informatics, as Levy et al. (2003)
have done. They define the domain of educational informatics as: ‘the study of the
application of digital technologies and techniques to the use and communication of
information in learning and education’ (p. 299) and the main concerns as twofold:
First, research in educational informatics seeks to understand the effects on people of using
digital information (re)sources, services, systems, environments and communications media
for learning and education. It examines the issues and problems that arise from their
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 30
practice and how these relate to factors such as educational and professional context, com-
munication and information practices, psychological and cognitive variables, and ICT design
and use. Second, it seeks to contribute to the development of practical knowledge that is
relevant to diverse forms of ICT-supported learning.
(Levy et al., 2003: 299)
In reviewing how computer systems have been received, there are many parallels
in the receipt of learning technologies. For instance, unquestioned technological
or social deterministic views hold back an effective transformation to e-learn-
ing. Teachers may avoid online teaching because they feel constrained by the
technology (a technological determinist view, resisted through non-use), or they
may come online expecting to transfer existing teaching practices wholesale to
the online enterprise (a social determinist view, expecting no change in their
pedagogy). But neither approach serves the long-term interests of educators and
neither approach can be maintained for long. In the former case, student use and
demand for technology plus campus initiatives to ‘keep up’ with the technology
use of other campuses will remove the option of non-use for teachers; and in the
latter case, as has been shown from many studies, simple transfer from offline to
online does not make good pedagogy – teachers interested in good pedagogy
learn to modify their practices in accordance with the online environment.
There are parallels in the way computerization automates and informates e-
learning in the same way it has done for other operations. Formerly transient and
ephemeral processes are now routinely recorded as part of the delivery process.
Conversations, discussions and lectures that remain in digital records facilitate
asynchronous participation, but their persistence also allows interrogation and
review. They create a source of information about the course progress and con-
duct. As Berge (1997: 15) notes, an ‘interesting line of research involves the fact
that computer conferencing programs can produce complete transcripts of all
interactions they have mediated. These transcripts are a rich data source.’
Beyond research, however, they are also an interesting source of data for moni-
toring, accountability and benchmarking.
Paralleling the concerns described by Zuboff of workers cut off from human
contact (see also Kraut et al., 1998, for similar concerns about Internet use),
many conceive of e-learning as an individual working alone at their computer.
What is different now is that the isolated student is just as likely to be carrying
on conversations with many others via class discussion boards, e-mail and whis-
pering, moulding and forming the communication dialogue they prefer. Invisible
to the outside observer is the communication that goes on between students, and
between students and instructors, as the student sits ‘alone’ at their terminal, as
well as the actions they take to initiate and sustain that interaction. Perhaps now
we should say that computers automate, informate, and ‘communicate’ (in the
sense that computers facilitate communication). The turn from HCI to CSCW
marks a turn from humans interacting with computers to interacting with others
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 31
through computers, an observation made early in relation to education in a col-

lection of papers concerned with computer-supported collaborative learning
(CSCL; O’Malley, 1989). In that volume, Bannon connects ideas from CSCW
with CSCL, describing the computer’s role ‘as a medium through which individ-
uals and groups can collaborate with others’ (Bannon, 1989: 271; see also
Crook, 1989; Kaye, 1991, 1995). These interests in collaboration have led to the
development of more all-embracing systems developments for supporting
knowledge work, such as collaboratories (also known as collaborative virtual
environments, Finholt, 2002) which lead naturally to the idea of collaborative
learning and collaborative learning environments (Lunsford and Bruce, 2001).
Bringing together rhetorical and social/educational informatics

perspectives
If rhetorical theory and social/educational informatics provide some theoretical
basis to the field, what are the field’s parameters? How do we know what is
included and what is excluded from research in e-learning? Our answer comes
from one aspect of discourse theory that itself derives from sociological theory:
the notion of framing. Put simply, any research study needs to be framed in
some way: it needs to define its boundaries, state what area it intends to cover
and provide a ‘map’ (literature review) of the field.
Tannen (1993), in Framing in Discourse, traces the concept of framing back to
Bateson’s ‘A theory of play and fantasy’ ([1954] 1972). Bateson, she suggests,
‘demonstrated that no communicative move, verbal or nonverbal, could be under-
stood without reference to a metacommunicative message, or metamessage, about
what is going on – that is, what frame of interpretation applies to the move’ (p. 3).
The notion of framing – itself deriving metaphorically from the framing of paint-
ings in the visual arts or other forms of art, like theatre and its framed spaces – has
been taken up by researchers in communication and psychology, anthropology,
and most notably in sociology in Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974). As far as rhet-
oric and the arts of discourse go, it is a central organizing principle of
communication. (See also Engeström and Middleton, 1996, on activity theory and
complex systems theory.) Frames are systemic (political assumptions, ideologies,
historical tendencies), concrete (a school, other institutions), genre-based (socially
habitual forms of communication, like debates, conversations) as well as ‘inside
the head’ – a kind of cultural programming. Frames can be transgressed as well as
observed. They can also be imposed by others. Such imposition can be made
directly or through technologies and/or organizational structures which make it lit-
erally impossible to do things in certain ways.
In terms of the field of e-learning research, what frames are brought to bear in
its interpretation? We could posit these as technical, sociological and pedagogical.
Technically, there now appears to be no limit to what is possible in terms of con-
nectivity. Wireless connection, access grid technology, and broadband Internet
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 32
connection allow multimodal communication between two or more people. There

is the possibility of synchronous and asynchronous communication, albeit without
physicality and with the constraints of access to equipment, networks and the
technical skill required to make such connection reliably. Sociologically, the dis-
persed, sometimes international nature of communities of enquiry makes for
distributed learning, often more informally than has been the case in the past.
Pedagogically, the teacher comes and goes in the class – a presence which co-
ordinates, directs, supports, and challenges the learners. It could be said that the
relation between teacher and learner has the potential to be equalized in e-
learning, with authoritative, canonical positions adopted by teachers less likely to
be accepted by learners; on the other hand, anecdotal evidence suggests that a
teacherly presence and/or leadership is important for sustaining the group.
Whatever the precise and specific dynamic of an e-learning community, the
nature and power (and extent) of networks becomes more telling and more influ-
ential in the nature of the actual learning that takes place. Rogoff (1990) has
suggested that ‘learning is an effect of community’; that is, what we learn is a
read-off or affordance of being part of a community, whether that community is a
school, family, street corner, club, society or looser group of friends. Essentially,
without a community of some sort, the learning that arises from involvement in it
cannot take hold. Community, therefore, is a sine qua non of learning. To adapt
Rogoff’s (1990) phrase for the twenty-first century and in particular for e-learn-
ing, learning becomes an effect of computer networked communities rather than
an effect of local, geographical community.
It is exactly at the point where questions are asked about networked commu-
nities of practice that current theory in e-learning begins to break down.
Questions that suggest themselves for future work include: What do we mean by
a community of enquiry? How do e-communities relate to situated, real-world
communities? (see Kazmer, this volume) What kinds of community experience
are best suited to high-quality learning? Where and what are the boundaries
between being, and acting in the world, and learning? What could an ecology of
learning mean, and, once defined, how would e-learning fit into it?
A central theme emerging from such questions is the relationship between the
social control of learning and individual agency in learning. From the identification
of such a theme – one that is not confined to e-learning, but which applies to learn-
ing more generally – further questions arise. When engaged in e-learning, what are
you learning? Whose model of learning and whose selection of knowledge are you
adopting? What are the unexpected consequences of the drive for e-learning initia-
tives, such as the continued exclusion of non-ICT users? What is the digital divide
(see Haythornthwaite, this volume) in terms of access to and use of ICT in learning?
This is a short list of questions, and there is much scope for examination. As
said above, this is an exciting time to be exploring this phenomenon. To help in
that exploration, we turn now from theoretical considerations to issues of
methodology and method.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 33
METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES FOR E-LEARNING RESEARCH
Methodologically, e-learning research requires inventive approaches. The com-

plexity of e-learning situations cannot always be easily described, let alone
investigated and analysed. In this section, we explore some of the difficulties of
finding the right methodology (overall approach) and methods (techniques) for
researching e-learning; we also propose some possible solutions. In particular,
we are concerned to point out that conventional approaches to research in educa-
tion may not be adequate to the task in hand; and that finding appropriate
methodologies may be more important than discovering new methods. More
specifically, we think that one-way models of research (the simple causal model
in which an intervention has an effect on an existing state of affairs) and two-
way models (‘there is a symbiotic relationship between technologies and
learning’) need to give way to reciprocal co-evolutionary models of the relation-
ship between the ‘e-’ and ‘learning’ in e-learning research. In order to
demonstrate an emerging model, we will use the specific case of research into
the relationship between ICT and literacy education, scaling up the model to
apply to research into e-learning.
One of the problems with research in education – and it no doubt applies to
other fields of enquiry too, and to research in particular disciplines – is that the
object of research is often framed too simply. To put it more precisely, the object
of research is conceived of as a single entity that is affected or influenced by one
or more factors or variables. Such a single entity is often the focus of whatever
method or methods is/are used to understand it and to shed light on it.
Whichever approach we take, the problem of a single entity on which we are
focusing remains. It is, perhaps, a vestige of what is assumed to be a ‘scientific’
approach to the investigation of a single entity – something we try to isolate, by
controlling variables, in order to understand it. However, conceiving of e-learn-
ing situations in terms of their singularity will not help us progress far in
research terms, because the very nature of e-learning is enmeshed within social
and informational contexts of the kind we have described in the theoretical sec-
tion of this introduction.
To explain our emerging sense of what is needed in e-learning research, we
start with the example of studies of the relationship between ICTs and literacy
development. We suggest that the lessons learnt from trying to interrogate this
relationship at the level of literacy development can be scaled up to apply to
learning in general and thus provide a more powerful methodological model for
the future of e-learning research.
The remainder of the introduction articulates a model for examining e-
learning that incorporates elements of rhetorical, communication, and social
informatics theories. This model has been developed by Andrews, and was first
presented at conferences in 2005 (Andrews, 2005a, b).
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 34
Modelling e-learning processes

If we are interested in the effectiveness of a particular intervention – say the com-
puter interface – on some educational outcome – say learning development for
5–16 year olds, or for undergraduate students – we could set up a controlled
experiment in which we try to isolate and measure the impact of the intervention
from effects from all other variables. Or we could study the case of a single pupil,
or a group of pupils, or the equivalent at undergraduate level and undertake a
holistic study in which we embraced all the variables or factors that were at play in
order to get a better understanding of what was going on with our particular case.
In the former approach, the methodology is exclusive; in the latter, it is inclusive.
What most researchers and reviewers of research have been asking to date in
the field of ICT and literacy education in schools is ‘What is the impact of ICT
on literacy development?’ When it has been hard to pin down exactly what is
meant by ‘impact’, researchers have narrowed the aperture to ask a more precise
question: ‘What is the effect (or effectiveness) of ICT on literacy development?’
and thus narrowed the attention to controlled trials, and randomized controlled
trials where they can be found (see Andrews, 2004; Andrews et al., 2002;
Andrews et al., 2005; Burn and Leach, 2004; Locke and Andrews, 2004; Low
and Beverton, 2004: Torgerson and Zhu, 2003). Rather than discuss this and
other research, we will depict the progress from the one-way model of research
methodology – which we now find too limited for our purposes – to a dialectic
and longitudinal model that is appropriate for the study of e-learning in higher
education and other contexts. The progress from conventional approaches to
cause–effect study through to a new model is depicted through stages.
In the stage depicted in Figure 1.3 the relationship between an intervention (x)
and the phenomenon which it affects or has impact on (y) is basically causal; x is
assumed to be unchanging, but its arrival on the scene, its presence, its actions
make a difference to y. Most studies in the field of ICT and literacy education
have used this model in the 1980s and 1990s and indeed into the first part of the
twenty-first century. In fact, most short-term evaluations are of this nature (of
which there have been many in the field of ICT’s impact on literacy and other
aspects of education since 1980 or so; see Tweddle, 1997). The most reliable and
highly controlled experiments of this kind are randomized controlled trials, which,
by controlling for wayward variables and randomizing participants to experimen-
x y
Figure 1.3 One-way model of causality. This model assumes the impact or
effect on x and y. It assumes that, although y is affected by x, x remains
unchanged
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 35
tal and control groups, can claim to say something about the causal relationship
between x and y. Discussions of the nature and complexity of causality are often
put aside in such research projects, as they would interfere with what looks like a
relatively simple model. We all know this model: it is one of a number of default
models in educational research, often removing considerations of context from a
study in order to identify an internal and single causal relationship.
x y
Figure 1.4 Two-way model. This model assumes there is some kind of
dialogic relationship between x and y. In other words, although x may affect
y, it may also be the case that y affects x – perhaps to the same degree, or
perhaps to a lesser extent (or even, possibly, to a greater extent). In studies
in literacy development the relationship has been described as ‘symbiotic’ by
Haas (1996)
While the one-way model provides a starting point, neither life nor learning
stops after one interaction. Thus, we build on to the one-way model a reaction or
simultaneous action of y on x. Figure 1.4 shows that the relationship between x
and y is complicated by the fact that the reaction of y may have a bearing upon x.
This relationship can be described as symbiotic, in that the two parties or enti-
ties affect each other, with each adapting to the other’s characteristics. It is a
two-way process; indeed, each party comes to depend on the other. For example,
the advent of word-processing software may have affected writing practices, but
writing practices in turn have affected word-processing programmes. Word-
processing software has evolved from its earlier simplicity to include features
permitting tracking changes, adding editorial comments, and reformatting docu-
ments. But such features do not entirely arise from the technology; they were
practised by scribes in the medieval period and are part of writing process prac-
tice that re-emerged in the work of Graves (1983) and others (e.g. Andrews and
Noble 1982) in the early 1980s. In this case, writing practices have had a back-
wash or informing effect on software design, thus enabling the inclusion of
tracking and other editorial devices in the word-processing packages.
Co-evolutionary model
The model depicted in Figure 1.4 is closest to what Haas (1996) calls the symbi-
otic relationship between ICT and development. This acceptance of a two-way
process in the interaction between ICT and learning, in our model, can be scaled
up to a two-way process in understanding the relationship between any two phe-
nomena, as long as there is some degree of mutability in both phenomena.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 36
However, symbiosis is not the appropriate term to characterize the relation-

ship between ICT and learning development, nor any scaled-up dialectical
relationship between mutable phenomena. The problem is that symbiosis is
essentially conservative, i.e., a symbiotic relationship is one where the two par-
ties try to preserve and conserve the equilibrium that they have reached. Such
conservatism clearly isn’t the case with the relationship between ICT and learn-
ing, nor in most dialectical, developmental situations. So, in order to reflect
more accurately what goes on between the two phenomena, it is necessary to
move towards a model that biologists call ‘reciprocal co-evolution’.
ICT 2 Learning 2
ICT 1 Learning 1
Figure 1.5 Co-evolutionary model, stage 1. Both ICT and learning change
in time. What counts for ICT in 1990 is different by the year 2000, and again
different in 2010. Similarly, what counts as being a learner also changes.
For the moment, let us concentrate on the internal dynamics of the relation-
ship, though it is obvious that there are external factors at play in bringing about
change in ICT and in learning. Figure 1.5 introduces a temporal dimension into
the relationship. In research terms, it would be characterized as longitudinal. In
the fast-changing world of information and communication technology, what
counts as standard one year is not the same as what is standard a year or two
later. If we compared 1980 with 1990, and then with 2000 and 2010, for exam-
ple, we would register considerable change in the ICT field, not only in terms of
what is available, but also in the degree of accessibility to that technology.
Similarly, what counts as learning also changes (though more slowly) and edu-
cational changes – in curricula, classroom design, social practices within
schooling, etc. – tend to follow even more slowly. Rather than complicate the
model at this point, the educational contexts and the individual growth of the
learner are left out, though they clearly have a bearing on the learning that takes
place and they also change over time.
Thus, methodologically, any study of the relationship between ICT and learning
needs a dialectical as well as a temporal dimension if it is to give a full account of
the relationship. Figure 1.6 depicts the fact that a new state of affairs has come
about – which we have called ICT 2 and Learning 2. There is not only a new ‘two-
way’ or quasi-symbiotic relationship between the two phenomena, but there are also
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 37
backwash or delayed influences, indicated by the diagonal arrows. For example, the
use of Microsoft’s PowerPoint as a presentational tool was extensive in the first part
of the first decade of the twenty-first century, even though other presentation soft-
ware or approaches were available (e.g. through the creation of a Web site with hot
spots to reveal information, using hypertextual principles). As individuals ‘discov-
ered’ PowerPoint and added it to their repertoire they operated at different levels:
plain slide presentations using given templates; the creation of individual and/or
corporate templates; the introduction of images; the introduction of moving images
and/or sound; the creation of hot spots to automate links to Web sites. Presenters
often back up their electronic presentations with acetate slides for an overhead pro-
jector. ‘New’ technologies and practices, like presentation through a Web site or
PowerPoint, thus backwash on to older technologies and practices.
ICT 2 Learning 2
ICT 1 Learning 1
Figure 1.6 Co-evolutionary model, stage 2. Both ICT and learning change
in time, but so do the learners as they grow up and develop. A new
‘symbiosis’ is established at ICT 2 and Learning 2; but there are also
residual influences
Such residuality, backwash, and consolidation are important both for ICT
development and for learning development. As suggested earlier in this intro-
duction, residual technologies take their place in relation to new forms of
learning rather than being replaced by them, creating a new economy in commu-
nicative and educational practices. To put it another way: old technologies and
practices don’t necessarily disappear as new technologies come along. They are
absorbed, added to, or find their place, rather than being replaced. Their place is
determined by the economies of use: the key rhetorical principle of what is or
are the best medium/media of communication in any particular situation and set
of circumstances. So, as indicated in Figure 1.6, ICT 1 may have effects and
impacts on Learning 2 and (perhaps to a lesser extent) vice versa. The emergent
complexity of the model is shown in Figure 1.7.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 38
ICT 3 Learning 3
ICT 2 Learning 2
ICT 1 Learning 1
Figure 1.7 Co-evolutionary model, stage 3
The diagonal effects can also be from an advanced state of ICT development in
relation to less advanced states of learning development, as shown in Figure 1.8.
Here we have the almost fully-fledged model describing the complex of relation-
ships between two entities that are both developing in time. The figure also
ICT 3 Learning 3
ICT 2 Learning 2
ICT 1 Learning 1
Figure 1.8 Co-evolutionary model, stage 4

CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 39
suggests that each of the entities brings a history with it and that both are likely to
continue changing into the future. To put it another way: every new form of ICT
runs through old ways of use until new forms – many of them hybrid – are found.
The value of the co-evolutionary model is that it can provide a framework for
studies in ICT and development of learning practices. While research studies
may concentrate on only one aspect of the model – for example, the effect of
ICT 1 on Learning 1 – such limited study needs to be placed within a bigger pic-
ture, without making claims that would apply to the whole of the relationship
between the two entities.
In broad methodological terms, the co-evolutionary model posited here goes
beyond simplistic notions of causality and introduces a temporal dimension. In
research methods terms, the model suggests the need for an approach that is
more able to describe and analyse such a dialectical relationship. Although it is
not possible to explore all possibilities in detail in this introduction, one
approach that looks useful is cross-lagged panel analysis (or cross-lagged panel
design; Oud, 2002). This approach was first mooted by Lazarsfeld (Lazarsfeld,
1940; Lazarsfeld and Fiske, 1938). It has been used more recently to study the
reciprocal relationship between parenting and adolescent problem-solving
behaviour (Rueter and Conger, 1998). There is room for further exploration of
the applicability and worth of cross-lagged panel designs in educational
research, in particular in paying attention to the problem of how continuous (and
sometimes erratic) development can be adequately mapped in staged analyses of
reciprocity. This standard approach to dynamic phenomena in natural science
could be used to explore the relationship between ICT and learning with the use
of qualitative as well as quantitative data.
Before we leave this model, however, there is one further consideration to take
into account: that these phenomena – ICT development and use – do not take place
in a vacuum and are in themselves phenomena affected by and affecting context.
Adding societal context

To complete the model, we need to take into account something that has arisen
already in systematic reviews of the relationship between ICT and literacy/learn-
ing development, i.e. neither ICT nor literacy/learning is a simple entity in itself
(see, for example, Cope and Kalantzis, 2000, on multiliteracies). Similarly,
learning is not a self-contained entity, but instead is heavily influenced by local,
regional, national, and international contexts. To take ICT: the term itself covers
a multitude of different technologies and modes of communication. When
researchers take ‘ICT’ as one of their points of reference, they take much for
granted. Are they talking about desktop computer interfaces and their use, or are
they talking about the same software interfaces being used on a laptop, palmtop
or via mobile phone? Are moving images, as experienced in the cinema, at
home, or in the classroom, included or excluded from the definition of ICT?
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 40
Such considerations suggest the need for another dimension of classification –

what biologists refer to as a phylogeny of the field. A phylogeny of e-learning
would track the historical/longitudinal and taxonomic progress of ICT and
learning (separately) and then show at what points they converge. The nearest
analogy outside Biology is probably the ‘family tree’ model. We have not space
in this introduction to create such a phylogeny, but invite future researchers to
do so. Such a phylogeny would have the advantage of defining exactly the social
and political provenance of a particular aspect of e-learning, distinguishing it
from other related activities that might otherwise be confused with it.
Similarly, contexts of family, educational and social policy, economic funding
and international competition affect the learning context; and technology
advances, networking infrastructures and ICT developments constitute and
affect the e-learning context. In the light of these considerations, the co-evolu-
tionary model depicted above needs to be extended to accommodate wider
contexts. Figure 1.9 presents a version of a co-evolutionary contextual model
that can act as a starting point for theoretical models of research in e-learning in
general. The new model shows how factors external to the internal dynamics of
the model need to be taken into account when investigating phenomena like ICT
and learning. These include factors that determine the changing nature of ICT,
like economic, design and scientific factors; the changing nature of electronic
communities; and the determinants of longitudinal growth.
ICT 3 Learning 3
What factors What factors

affect the affect learning
development development,
of ICT? irrespective
of ICT?
ICT 2 Learning 2
How do
individuals
What kinds of relate to
e-communities communities
are created of learning
and how are (family, school,
they sustained? street, clubs,
societies, etc.)?
ICT 1 Learning 1
What are the

determinants of
longitudinal growth?
Figure 1.9 Co-evolutionary contextual model

CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 41
Clearly a conclusion at this point in time would be inappropriate for a develop-

ing, exploratory model. Better approaches for the time being are: to critique the
proposed model itself; to look for ways of testing the efficacy of the model’s
power to explain; and to ask questions of its scalability.
In the sense that the model itself is predicated on a dialectical principle, there is
probably scope for its use. Not only horizontal and diagonal effects are equally or
unevenly reciprocated, but vertical ones might also exist which describe the
advances made from one state to another for a particular phenomenon. These ves-
tigial or residual elements might be investigated in themselves. They are
developmental and diachronic, as opposed to synchronic. The opportunity for
dialectical interaction between states/snapshots of development is full of potential.
To sum up: the vertical axes represent change in time. We can research these
by identifying points in time at which measures will be taken of the state of
technological development or the state of learning (whether the latter is a partic-
ular age group growing over a number of years, or a cohort changing over a
short period of time) and by modelling the changes alongside each other. The
horizontal axes represent the causal and symbiotic relationships between the two
entities. The diagonal axes represent residual and predicted changes as a result
of interaction between the two entities.
Research studies in the field of e-learning may not explore every axis, nor each
particular link in the structure, but by referring to a larger picture of reciprocal co-
evolution between ICT and learning, may be able to position themselves more
clearly and accurately in a complex and intra-related field of enquiry.
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING EMERGENT PROCESSES IN

E-LEARNING
The model of emergent processes described above, and the social informatics
research perspective, both draw our attention to the way e-learning is itself an
emergent process. While some view it as a new delivery mechanism for educa-
tion, and others view it as a new pedagogical challenge, what that delivery looks
like and what frames the pedagogical challenge emerges from the interplay
between new educational strategies, new teaching approaches, new technolo-
gies, and new participants in this endeavour. A key need for e-learning research
is, then, to consider how this phenomenon unfolds in educational settings.
Emergent, socio-technical change is not random. Knowing what is likely to
influence the changing face of e-learning lets us predict, and, indeed, shape its
future form – though these forms are going to be adapted on the ‘shop floor’ and
in individual contexts. As a final presentation in this introduction, the following
framework and its examples are offered as a beginning to exploration of the co-
evolutionary developments in e-learning.
In grappling with the complexity of the area, four primary areas of action
stand out for examining change processes in e-learning. These are actions taken
by or emanating from administration, pedagogy, technology, and community.
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 42
Change in any of these areas not only drives further change within the area
itself, but also drives and is driven by change in each other area. Administration
encompasses the decisions made about e-learning initiatives in education, and
the decision makers who direct this agenda. Pedagogy entails the knowledge
accumulated about teaching and learning, as well as the teachers and instructors
who build and deliver courses. Technology in this instance is narrowly defined
as the delivery mechanisms for e-learning, i.e., primarily computer-based tech-
nology, including course management systems, e-mail, the Internet, and newly
emergent information and communication technologies. Community refers here
to potential and actual elearners and the communities they live in, both physical
and virtual, on-campus and off.
As decisions and implementations are made in each area, they have direct and
indirect effects on other areas. Table 1.1 presents a first run at sorting out and
describing the complex interactions of the four prime areas. It is offered as a
beginning of such explanation. Future research will be able to refine and verify
impacts, as well as considering other areas and streams of influence (e.g. eco-
nomic factors). In Table 1.1, the direct and indirect effects are classified as
driver, passenger, emergent and second-order effects. Driver effects are evident
when an action stemming from one of the four identified areas has an impact on
other aspects of e-learning, e.g. when administrative decisions about technology
drive what options are available for giving online classes and for maintaining an
online community. Passenger effects are evident in the way practices are trans-
formed by the driving forces, e.g. in the way pedagogy can or must now proceed
because of an administrative choice about technology. All driver effects have an
impact on a passenger, but to save redundancy the passenger side impact is not
given in the table. Instead, identification of a passenger effect is limited to
instances where the effect is less immediately expected. Readers may, however,
prefer to see them all as driver effects, since even the unexpected passenger
effect then becomes a driver for further change.
Outcomes that arise from action within the same area are identified as emer-
gent effects; these appear primarily along the diagonal in Table 1.1. Such
influences may come from action within the local institution or programme, but
also from outside, e.g. as institutions look to and emulate peers, as colleagues
share pedagogical techniques at conferences, and as new technologies appear.
(See Scott, 1992, for more on the many kinds of ways organizations pay atten-
tion to their environments, for example, following the actions of peer
institutions, regional competitors, etc.).
Finally, outcomes that emerge because of new practices are indicated in the
table as second-order effects. These do not arise immediately but emerge later in
time as a set of less expected outcomes; sometimes these become further driver,
passenger, or emergent effects.
The effects described in Table 1.1 begin the work of identifying the major
push-and-pull between developments in each of these areas. The ideas presented
in the table are not intended to be exhaustive, but instead illustrative of the kind
of iterative action and reaction that is of importance to e-learning. It is hoped
that it will be taken up, expanded and tested by future e-learning research.
CH01.QXD
Table 1.1: E-learning driver, passenger, emergent, and second-order effects

18/5/07
Administration drives … Pedagogy drives … Technology drives … Community drives …

12:39
Administration ! External A drives A: decisions " P drives A: early adopters of technology " T drives A: availability of learning " C drives A:
about the adoption of new practices experiment with new technologies in their technology systems determines community use of technology
that are made at peer institutions classes, driving class transformation, outreach development versus off-the-shelf purchase drives administrative response
drive decisions and practices made programmes and distributed learning, even before options for administrative choices to keep up with incoming
for the local institution wider administration choices are made student expectations and
Page 43
" T drives A: local adoption of technologies employers’ expectations

! " New P drives A: the need to meet new increases need for hardware and software about training
technology-based pedagogy drives administration purchase, management and training and
to implement support mechanisms for non- system upgrading
early adopters to learn to teach online
Pedagogy " A drives P: administrative ! External P drives P: changes in pedagogical " T drives P: technology choices drive " C drives P: changing
decisions and directives drive practice are discovered and exchanged how teaching can be delivered and who community work and
how education will be delivered through professional organizations, research can receive it knowledge needs drive
and thus the priorities for pedagogy and publication affecting local practice need for lifelong learning,
! ! P and T co-evolve: limitations of distributed and mobile
! ! New P drives P: norms of use are built, technology drive changes in pedagogy, learning
creating a comparison set for e-learning but pedagogical requirements drive
practices as well as a set to learn from and copy technology design and improvement
Technology " A drives T: administration makes " P drives T: teachers adopt and then ! External T drives T: technology trends are " C drives T: community
INTRODUCTION TO E-LEARNING
decisions about institution-wide experiment with technology in their classes, matched in e-learning, e.g. enterprise-wide expectations about what
technology adoption and support determining their technology preferences, systems with course management systems; technology makes an
and sit on working committees determining computer-mediated communication with e-mail institution and its programme
# A drives T: administrative technology adoptions accounts and support for students; Internet with progressive drive attention to
decisions push use of technology and online course reserves, electronic publication technology within the
can limit choice of technology # New P drives A and T: e-learning licences; distributed computing with distributed institution
(e.g. campus-wide selection of a solutions are adopted and implemented learning; mobile computing with mobile learning
learning platform limits instructor in response to opportunities for outreach,
options to use different systems new pedagogy, etc. ! New T drives T: e-learning systems offer
and approaches) a standard range of options, driving conformity
but also narrowing e-learning options
43
CH01.QXD
18/5/07
Table 1.1: continued

44
Administration drives … Pedagogy drives … Technology drives … Community drives …

12:39
Community " A drives C: expectations of !# P drives C: pedagogical requirements " T drives C: technology presence drives ! C drives C: community
technology use in classes in higher for use of online resources have the community efforts to promote information technology use, and support
education drive the need for the unexpected consequence of distributing and computer literacy, thus affecting for use, bootstraps community
community to prepare students responsibility to public access points, e.g. how well students are able to take readiness to use technology
Page 44
appropriately public and university libraries at locations advantage of technologies and e-learning and to take part in
local to the students; such institutions e-learning
then act as nests for the distributed ! # T drives C: distribution possible
learning ‘cuckoos’ (Searing, personal because of technology now places !# C drives C: embedded
communication)* teachers and learners in the community, learners enact new
at work, at home while at school relationships with embedding
!# P drives External A: use of local context
university libraries by non-enrolled
students leads to new inter-organizational ! # C drives C: increased
administrative practices use of online interactions for
education drives norms for
how to communicate and do
work, changing the skill
set available to employers
A administration, C community, P pedagogy, T technology

" Driver effects # Passenger effects ! Emergent effects ! Second-order effects
*Personal communication, Sue Searing, Library and Information Science Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 45
STRUCTURE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE HANDBOOK
We have taken the opportunity in this introduction to begin work on building a

framework for e-learning research, emphasizing the key elements involved in the e-
learning enterprise – learners, teachers, information and communication technology,
local and societal level knowledge, and embedding contexts – leading to a focus on
two theoretical perspectives – rhetorical theory and social informatics – and an
emergent, co-evolutionary process of development. Ours is just a beginning, and
invites testing and debate. It is now time to turn to the work of others in this
Handbook who can illuminate other areas of research and exploration for e-learning.
The Handbook is organized in five parts. The first chapters set the context for
research in e-learning, providing histories of important predecessors to e-
learning, including reviews of the now long-standing fields of asynchronous
learning networks (Hiltz, Turoff and Harasim) and computers and writing
(Hawisher and Selfe); the state of the digital divide (Haythornthwaite); the
online experience of gamers (McFarlane); and of the learning sciences that
design and study learning environments (Hoadley). The chapters in Part II
address theory, including a plea to maintain the understanding of ‘distance’ in
our new e-learning contexts (Thompson), explorations of the rhetoric of new
spaces and cultures of e-learning (Locke), the ways in which e-learning
research, development and implementation can be (and actually are) organized
(Whitworth), a theoretical approach to learning in a mobile age (Sharples,
Taylor and Vavoula) and computer-supported collaborative learning (Miyake).
From there, in Part III, we turn to policy, including issues of copyright and own-
ership in relation to e-learning intellectual property (Varvel, Montague and
Estabrook), an examination of international policy (Conole), e-learning in the
community (Kazmer), and what we know about individual differences and the
effectiveness of digital learning systems (Morgan and Morgan). In Part IV
issues of language and literacy are addressed, beginning with two chapters
addressing multilingual issues: one on bilingualism (Brutt-Griffler), and one
reviewing second language learning online (Chapelle); and one applying liter-
acy, learning and technology research to e-learning (Snyder). A further chapter
examines the practicalities of researching e-learning (Zhao). Part V examines
design issues, starting with how to design technically and socially for commu-
nity (Stuckey and Barab), and continuing with chapters on programme design
for professional development (Harlen and Doubler) and graduate education
(Roberts and Rostron); and a final chapter looking at current and future possi-
bilities in digital video production and literacy in schools (Burn).
Inevitably, in such a large and expanding field of enquiry, there are limita-
tions to the Handbook. While we have concentrated on the social dimensions of
e-learning, the nature of e-learning itself, communities of e-learning, theoretical
and methodological issues, and modelling e-learning processes, we acknowl-
edge that we have hardly touched on technical or technological issues,
pedagogical issues, the visual dimension of e-learning, forms of argumentation
within e-learning, e-learning in the global south (see Leach et al., 2005), or
CH01.QXD 18/5/07 12:39 Page 46
computer modelling of learning. These are all important and fascinating sub-
fields, worthy of handbooks to themselves. Nevertheless, we hope to have
provided at least an initial map for further research in the field.
NOTES
1 For more on modalities, see Halliday (1985) for detailed discussion of the distinctions between field,
tenor and mode in systematic functional linguistics, and Kress (2001, 2003, 2005) for a development
of the Hallidayan model into the semiotics and multimodalities of communication in education.
2 The continuously emergent nature of social interaction is inherent in Giddens’ (1984) structuration
theory. This has been taken up in relation to ICT use by Poole and DeSanctis (1990), Orlikowski
(1992) and Galegher and Kraut (1990). For more on emergent communication processes see Monge
and Contractor (1997, 2003).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to thank the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) and the UK’s Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC) for support of a series of seminars on e-learning organized on behalf of
the Universities of Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton and York by Richard Andrews,
held in 2004–6. Richard Andrews thanks colleagues for feedback and discussion on the model
described in the introduction, especially Professor Angela Douglas of the Biology Department at the
University of York. Caroline Haythornthwaite thanks the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Research Board for travel funds to attend the UK seminars, and WUN for support of a workshop she
organized on e-learning held at the Association of Internet Researchers conference, in Chicago in 2005.
We thank David Pilsbury and WUN for the opportunity to participate in e-learning meetings held in
2005 and 2006, and for WUN’s series of video-conferences on e-learning topics, organized by Andrew
Whitworth, who has also commented helpfully on an earlier version of the introduction. We also wish to
thank all contributors to the Handbook for their efforts and scholarship in creating this collection.
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Introduction To E-Learning Research: January 2007

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Introduction to E-learning research

Article · January 2007

Caroline Haythornthwaite Richard Andrews

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The publication of the SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research marks a signifi-

2 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

The use of technologies in learning opportunities, encompassing flexible learning as well as

(HEFCE, 2005: 12)

‘E-learning’ as a term is a hybrid. Like many compounds, the two elements

AN EXAMPLE OF RESEARCH ISSUES: ELECTRONIC WHITEBOARDS

Symptomatic of the problems facing researchers in e-learning is the case of

4 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

Other information on whiteboard use comes from the vendors themselves. In

6 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

THE ‘E’ IN E-LEARNING

Coding and decoding signals

8 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

Second, newer translations from full-screen to smaller handheld or mobile

Not so online. E-multimodality or multimedia must be planned, making choices

Information and communication technologies

10 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

Features and affordances

12 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

Asynchronous technology and its affordances for e-learning

community. They could be accessing the engagement for different periods of

14 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

not be achieved in practice. Interactivity can depend on the immediacy of ques-

Interactivity is not a characteristic of the medium. It is a process-related construct about com-

Synchronous communication is found in many e-learning environments,

16 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

THE ‘LEARNING’ IN E-LEARNING

First, learning is a personal and social/political transformative act in which

18 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

FROM ‘E’ + ‘LEARNING’ TO E-LEARNING

forms and shapes of technology, learning, and technology-in-use for learning

20 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

colleges, training colleges, post-secondary undergraduate and graduate pro-

Social processes and technology

‘electronic data processing’ captured the essence of these computing applica-

22 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

identifiable social/technical conditions. However, the rapid development of

24 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

As far as the electronic dimension of the field goes, communications theory

Rhetorical theory has already been used as a platform for understanding

I, the speaker, You, the listener,

It, the substance

Figure 1.1 Kinneavy’s (1971) model of communication

26 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

Potential for critique

Mediation of the Interrogation of

Figure 1.2 Adaptation of Kinneavy’s (1971) model

In this adapted model, learning is conceived as a dialogic and dialectical

Do Things with Words, where he makes the distinction between locutionary

(Kling et al., 2005: 6)

Social informatics provides another theoretical foundation for addressing e-

28 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF E-LEARNING RESEARCH

1999) to discourse communities (Miller, 1994; Warschauer, 2000), knowledge

New systems of social relationships

Exploring the nature of e-learning communities, Haythornthwaite and Kazmer